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November 29, 2007
Question

Thumbnails Missing in Vista Explorer Large & Extra Large View

  • November 29, 2007
  • 52 replies
  • 31124 views
I've noticed that thumbnail images are missing in the Vista explorer (View > Large/Extra Large Icon). I used to see a preview image in the explorer window without having to launch Acrobat Reader version 7.xxxx. I never use the preview pane, it was never necessary when the thumbnails provided a quick look inside the PDF document.

However, after installing version 8.1.1, these thumbnail images have disappeared and are now replaced by the generic Acrobat icon which came with the latest version. What's with that??? Do we HAVE TO upgrade from the free reader version to the pay version to get these previews?

This is not a Vista problem! This happened just after installing Reader 8. Images such as bitmaps, Photoshop psd files, png's, video mpg's, mpeg's and wmv's, for example, all display thumbnail images of the content in a Vista explorer folder window. But the PDF files only show the generic icon.

OS Name Microsoft® Windows Vista Home Premium
Version 6.0.6000 Build 6000
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    52 replies

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    _KlausHesselberg_
    Participant
    December 26, 2008
    Finaly i found the solution.
    I associated pdf files to Microsoft word .Make sure the explorer view is set to details, then I re-associated pdf files to Adove reader9 and switched to large icons. In a matter of moments, my thumbnails came back.
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    _ze_toto_
    Participant
    December 15, 2008
    best and simple solution from Ritzput on vista premium. uncheck the first box on the view tab of the folders options on the control panel. duh, i missed that box when i was looking into the problem ... great ritzput!
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    _Philip_Kimo_Johnson_
    Participant
    October 30, 2008
    My thumbnail view on Vista Home Basic suddenly reverted to the standard icon view, for no apparent reason.
    I tried every possible "fix", to no avail.
    My Acer Aspire laptop showed a message indicating Disc "Space Is Low"....
    I deleted around 800 MB of files, and immediately the photo / video thumbnail view was restored!
    If all else fails, this may remedy the problem...Hope this helps....
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    _danco_
    Participant
    September 22, 2008
    Ah, I finally got my PDF thumbnail preview images back after following Kochin's "Run Disk Cleanup" advice.

    Thanks!
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    _rolloLG_
    Participant
    September 5, 2008
    This happend to me too. Don't know when but Adobe Reader 8+ stopped creating thumbs and preview in preview-pane with Vista after some Reader updates (grrr)...

    Here is the how-to I used to solve the problem:
    a. uninstall Adobe Reader
    b. delete registry keys in HKCU
    \Software\Adobe\Adobe Acrobat
    \Software\Adobe\Acrobat Reader
    \Software\Adobe\CommonFiles\Usage\Reader...
    and in HKLM
    \Software\Adobe\Acrobat Reader
    c. use the free utility Unassoc 1.3 from http://www.winhelponline.com/articles/231/1/An-utility-to-unassociate-file-types-in-Windows-Vista.html and DELETE .PDF extension.
    d. reboot
    e. re-install Adobe Reader 9.0.0

    After these steps thumbs and previews work fine again and everything works as expected, finally! :)
    _
    _Josh_Lang_
    Participant
    July 20, 2008
    For XP and VISTA users, there is a new (free) app called ThumbView which displays PSD thumbnails in Explorer. I found it here: http://www.seriema.net/thumbview/index.php?page=download_lite

    Seems to work just fine with no side-effects, but as some have commented around here use care with CS2 and CS3 3rd pty applications.
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    _Antonio_Andalcio_
    Participant
    July 11, 2008
    The pdfshell.dll file controls the thumbnail view in Windows -- perhaps this dll file is not registered correctly. Sometimes running the "Repair Acrobat installation" command under the Help menu can address this.
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    _dryeena_
    Participant
    June 29, 2008
    I found another way.. I don't know how.. but when I ran the recover utility on the start up disk my stuff returned.
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    _Kochin_
    Participant
    June 5, 2008
    Here is how I fixed my missing PDF thumbnail problem.

    1. Run "Disk Cleanup" tool.
    2. Make sure the checkbox next to Thumbnails in the "Files to delete" list is checked.
    3. Click "Ok" to let it do the job removing all thumbnails.
    4. Open the folder that contains PDF files, and view it in the Icon View. All the thumbnails should be automatically recreated.
    _
    _dryeena_
    Participant
    June 3, 2008
    Hi! I just got my stuff working again!

    What I did was VERY simple.. and F*** adobe for making it so hard to isolate.

    Steps:

    Uninstall Adobe Reader..

    Fixed mine... hope it helps
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