Windows 95/98 forum: Picture thumbnails not showing up

Forogt, I'm using Windows 98 SE and this is something that happens in explorer. I could use a picture viewing program but it seems like overkill.

1. "Thumbnails" (Click to see an example screenshot) apply to Internet Explorer 5 users only if the Windows Desktop Update component is installed. This component is installed with Windows 98, or can be installed with Internet Explorer 4 ("How to Enable the Thumbnail View for Folders in Windows Explorer (Q176882)").

2. If the WinXP Service Pack 1 (SP1) has been installed, Thumbnails view for the following file types are unavable in the My Computer window or in Windows Explorer views:

HTML documents (.htm and .html files)
XML documents (.xml files)
Internet e-mail messages (.eml files)
Internet news messages (.nws files)

3. There are two options for resolving Thumbnail issues for some file types, [Q178746].

a. Click Start, Run, and type the following command in the Open box, and then press Enter:

b. regsvr32.exe /i shdocvw.dll

=otherwise, you must=

c. Reinstall the Windows Desktop Update component.

Note: For information about removing and installing the Windows Desktop Update component, see below.

4. To enable Thumbnail view for a folder in Windows Explorer, follow these steps:

a. If you have not already done so, install the Windows Desktop Update component.

b. Right-click the folder for which you want to enable Thumbnail view, and then click Properties.

c. Click the "Enable Thumbnail View" (Click to see an example screenshot) check box to select it, and then click OK.

Note: Thumbnail and Web View views cannot be combined for the same folder. Due to the complexity of each of these display options, they are mutually exclusive. If Thumbnail view is selected for a folder, Web View will automatically be turned off for that folder (although subfolders may still use Web View, as long as they don't also use Thumbnail view).

d. Supplemental reading - "How to Add or Remove Windows Desktop Update (Q165695)."

5. To view the contents of a folder using Thumbnail view, open the folder for which Thumbnail view is enabled, and then click Thumbnails on the View menu. The image files in the folder are displayed as miniature versions of the actual images in the right pane. The following are some of the file types that can be displayed using Thumbnail view:

BMP (Windows Bitmap files)
GIF (Graphics Interchange Format files)
JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group files)
HTM, HTML (Hypertext Markup Language files)

Note: Other file types may be displayed using Thumbnail view. Files that cannot be displayed using Thumbnail view are displayed using their default icons.

6. " Image Previews Not Displayed in Windows Explorer (Q192757)" describes the procedure for editing the Registry

Caveats: Before you edit the registry, make sure you understand how to restore it if a problem occurs. For information about how to do this, view the "Restoring the Registry" Help topic in Regedit.exe or the "Restoring a Registry Key" Help topic in Regedt32.exe.

WARNING: The first thing you need to do is check to see if you can use the suggestion in this paragraph to fix your preview problems.

a. Launch Windows Explorer and drill down to C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer and take a look inside. If the file Iexplore.exe is in this sub directory then go to the left pane and right click the folder name itself.

b. Select Properties and make sure that the DOS file name for this folder is INTERN~1. If it is, you're Okay and you can prepare, save and use the following information. If not, STOP, and do not proceed.

c. Otherwise, copy the content of the bolded information below and after copying, use NotePad as the text editor and paste into it. Save the file as FixPix.inf. Make note of where you've stored it because you'll need to know.

[Version]
Signature="$chicago$"

[DefaultInstall]
AddReg=AddRegKey
DelReg=DelRegKey

[AddRegKey]
hkcr, jpegfile,,0,"JPEG Image"
hkcr, jpegfile\DefaultIcon,,0, "C:\PROGRA~1\INTERN~1\iexplore.exe,8"
hkcr, jpegfile\shell\open\command,,0, """C:\PROGRA~1\INTERN~1\iexplore.exe"" -nohome" - IVIEW
hkcr, jpegfile\shell\open\ddeexec,,0, """file:%1"",,-1,,,,,"
hkcr, jpegfile\shell\open\ddeexec\Application,,0, IExplore
hkcr, jpegfile\shell\open\ddeexec\Topic,,0, "WWW_OpenURL"
hkcr, jpegfile\CLSID,,0, "{25336920-03F9-11cf-8FD0-00AA00686F13}"
hkcr, .jfif,,0, "jpegfile"
hkcr, .jfif, "Content Type",0, "image/pjpeg"
hkcr, ".jfif\ShellEx\{BB2E617C-0920-11d1-9A0B-00C04FC2D6C1}",,0,"{7376D660-C583-11d0-A3A5-00C04FD706EC}"
hkcr, .jpe,,0, "jpegfile"
hkcr, .jpe, "Content Type",0, "image/jpeg"
hkcr, ".jpe\ShellEx\{BB2E617C-0920-11d1-9A0B-00C04FC2D6C1}",,0,"{7376D660-C583-11d0-A3A5-00C04FD706EC}"
hkcr, .jpeg,,0, "jpegfile"
hkcr, .jpeg, "Content Type",0, "image/jpeg"
hkcr, ".jpeg\ShellEx\{BB2E617C-0920-11d1-9A0B-00C04FC2D6C1}",,0,"{7376D660-C583-11d0-A3A5-00C04FD706EC}"
hkcr, .jpg,,0, "jpegfile"
hkcr, .jpg, "Content Type",0, "image/jpeg"
hkcr, ".jpg\ShellEx\{BB2E617C-0920-11d1-9A0B-00C04FC2D6C1}",,0,"{7376D660-C583-11d0-A3A5-00C04FD706EC}"
hkcr, giffile,,0,"GIF Image"
hkcr, giffile\DefaultIcon,,0, "C:\PROGRA~1\INTERN~1\iexplore.exe,9"
hkcr, giffile\shell\open\command,,0, """C:\PROGRA~1\INTERN~1\iexplore.exe"" -nohome"
hkcr, giffile\shell\open\ddeexec,,0, """file:%1"",,-1,,,,,"
hkcr, giffile\shell\open\ddeexec\Application,,0, IExplore
hkcr, giffile\shell\open\ddeexec\Topic,,0, "WWW_OpenURL"
hkcr, giffile\CLSID,,0, "{25336920-03F9-11cf-8FD0-00AA00686F13}"
hkcr, .gif,,0, "giffile"
hkcr, .gif, "Content Type",0, "image/gif"
hkcr, ".gif\ShellEx\{BB2E617C-0920-11d1-9A0B-00C04FC2D6C1}",,0,"{7376D660-C583-11d0-A3A5-00C04FD706EC}"
hkcr, .bmp,,0, "Paint.Picture"
hkcr, .bmp, "Content Type",0, "image/bmp"
hkcr, ".bmp\ShellEx\{BB2E617C-0920-11d1-9A0B-00C04FC2D6C1}",,0,"{7376D660-C583-11d0-A3A5-00C04FD706EC}"
hkcr, ".bmp\ShellNew-", "NullFile",0,""

[DelRegKey]
hkcr, .gif,
hkcr, .jfif,
hkcr, .jpe,
hkcr, .jpeg,
hkcr, .jpg,
hkcr, .bmp,
hkcr, jpegfile,
hkcr, giffile,

d. What this .INF file will do is delete all the problematic registry entries for .JPG (all sub-types), .GIF and .BMP file types and then rebuild them with the default Win9x standards (.JPG and .GIF with Internet Explorer, and .BMP with MS Paint).

Note: If you have different associations for these file types you'll have to re-associate them after you're done fixing the preview problem.

7. To repair the preview feature in Windows Explorer, first make sure that you have Explorer set to view all folders "as Web Page".

8. Double-check that you actually have a problem. Go to a folder in Explorer and highlight a .JPG or .GIF or .BMP file and see if it previews.

9. If it doesn't, while still in Explorer go to the directory with the FixPix.inf, which was previously created, right-click it, and choose "Install".

10. Reference: I borrowed this information simply for your convenience from the site, PC911 - who should receive credit, and extracted it from: Fix Picture Preview In Windows Explorer - Preview Fix #2.

11. To re-associate a files with some other program, follow these procedure for each file types:

a. Launch Windows Explorer, find a .JPG file, and click to highlight it.

b. While holding down the SHIFT key and right clicking the file, Choose Open With from the context menu and select the action program.

c. Caution: Once the context menu opens, make sure the box Always use this program to open this file type is checked.

12. "What's up with Thumbs.db" file. If a folder's options are set to let you view all files, you may see a new file called Thumbs.db in that folder. This is the folder's thumbnails database. If you don't see Thumbs.db, choose View, Folder Options, click the View tab, select "Show all files" in the Advanced settings list, and click OK. Each folder with a thumbnail view will have its own Thumbs.db file; and the more files a folder contains, the larger its Thumbs.db file will be. So if you're getting tight on disk space, it pays to keep track of how much space these files occupy. To see their cumulative size, choose Start, Find, Files or Folders, type Thumbs.db in the Name field, choose Local hard drives for "Look in," and click Find Now. Press Ctrl-A to select all the found files, and press Alt-Enter to display a Properties dialog box that shows the total disk space consumed.

13. If thumbnails are crowding your hard drive, consider changing the View menu setting to something other than Thumbnails. Then display the Properties for the folder as explained above, and uncheck "Enable thumbnail view." Doing this deletes the Thumbs.db file for that folder. Repeat for as many folders as desired.

Got the problem fixed in the following way> in System Information (under Programs/Accessories) I went to Repair Internet Explorer. Rebooted and the thumbnails were back