Vista Tutorial - Thumbnails in Windows Explorer

**Brink** · **METHOD ONE:**

How to Turn Preview Thumbnails On or Off in Windows Explorer in Vista

Information

This will show you how to turn file and folder preview thumbnails on or off in all Windows Explorer windows. A thumbnail is a reduced image of a graphic, used to display multiple images at once.

NOTE

You will need to click on View or Views, on Windows Explorer window Menu bar, and have it set to either Medium Icons, Large Icons, or Extra Large Icons to see a thumbnail preview of the file image as the icon.

Tip

If thumbnails will still not show on the file icon even with thumbnails turned on from below, then check to make sure that Windows Photo Gallery is set as the default program with all of it's associations set to it.

WARNING

Thumbnails can cause navigating through a Windows Explorer window to be to slow for you while your waiting for the thumbnails to load if there is a lot of image files. Turning the thumbnails off can speed up how fast a Windows Explorer window will open.

RELATED LINKS:

EXAMPLE: Thumbnails On

EXAMPLE: Thumbnails Off

METHOD ONE:
Through Folder Options

1. Open Folder Options.

2. Click on the View tab. (See screenshot below)

3. To Turn OFF Folder and File Preview Thumbnails -
A) Check Always show icons, never thumbnails. (See screenshot above)

B) Go to step 5.

4. To Turn ON Folder and File Preview Thumbnails -
A) Uncheck Always show icons, never thumbnails. (See screenshot below step 2)

5. Click on OK. (See screenshot below step 2)

METHOD TWO:
Through Performance Options

1. Open Visual Effects Performance Options.

2. Click on the Visual Effects tab. (See screenshot below)

3. To Turn OFF Folder and File Preview Thumbnails -
A) Uncheck Show thumbnails instead of icons. (See screenshot above)

B) Go to step 5.

4. To Turn ON Folder and File Preview Thumbnails -
A) Check Show thumbnails instead of icons. (See screenshot below step 2)

5. Click on OK. (See screenshot below step 2)

METHOD THREE:
Through the Local Group Policy Editor

NOTE

This method is only available for the Vista Business, Ultimate, and Enterprise editions. See Method Four below for the Vista Basic and Home Premium editions.

1. Open the Local Group Policy Editor.

2. In the left pane, click on User Configuration, Administrative Templates, Windows Components, and Windows Explorer. (See screenshot below)

3. In the right pane, right click on Turn off the display of thumbnails and only display icon and click on Properties. (See screenshot above)

4. To Enable Windows ExplorerThumbnails -
A) Select (dot) Disabled or Not Configured and click on OK. (See screenshot below step 5A)

B) Go to step 6.

5. To Disable Windows Explorer Thumbnails -
A) Select (dot) Enabled and click on OK.

6. Close the Local Group Policy Editor window. Your done.

METHOD FOUR:
Through the Registry

NOTE

This will work for all Vista versions.

Through a Download:
1. To Disable Windows Explorer Thumbnails -
A) Click on the download button below to download the
Disable_Explorer_Thumbnails.reg file.

B) Go to step 3.

2. To Enable Windows Explorer Thumbnails -
A) Click on the download button below to download the
Enable_Explorer_Thumbnails.reg file.

3. Click on Save, and save the .reg file to the Desktop.

4. Right click on the .reg file (on Desktop) and click on Merge.

5. Click on the Run button in the Security Warning pop-up.

6. Click on Continue (UAC), Yes, and then OK when prompted.

7. When done, you can delete the .reg file (on Desktop).

8. Logoff and logon, or restart the computer to apply changes.

The Manual Way:
1. Open the Start Menu.

2. In the white line (Start Search) area, type regedit and press Enter.

3. Click on the Continue button in the UAC prompt.

4. In regedit, go to: (See screenshot below)
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

5. To Disable Windows Explorer Thumbnails -
A) In the right pane of Explorer, right click on a empty area and click on New and DWORD (32-bit) Value and type DisableThumbnails and press Enter. (See screenshot below)

B) Right click on DisableThumbnails and click on Modify.

C) Type 1 and click on OK. (See screenshot below)

D) The registry will now look like this. (See screenshot below)

E) Go to step 7.

6. To Enable Windows Explorer Thumbnails -
A) In the right pane of Explorer, right click on DisableThumbnails and click on Delete. (See screenshot above)

B) Click on Yes to confirm deletion.

7. Close regedit.

8. Logoff and logon, or restart the computer to apply changes.

That's it,
Shawn

tigorek · 02-02-2008

Hello
i wanted to ask if i can turn off only folder preview thumbnails in all Windows Explorer windows and not files preview thumbnails?

**Brink** · 02-02-2008

Hi tigorek,

Welcome to Vista Forums.

Sorry, they go hand and hand.

Shawn

smilinged · 07-30-2008

Since installing Service Pack 1 I have had major problems with video clips. There are a number of scenarios with one thing in common: when I open the folder that contains the video files, the address bar starts to gray out as it loads the file icons then slows drastically and the icon stays as the label (MPEG, WMV, AVI) without the thumbnail picture for none, one, some or all of the files in the folder. Eventually the address bar is totally grayed out but the "label icons" remain "un-thumbnailed". Sometimes when I go to another folder and return to the original folder one or more "label icon" turns into a "thumbnail icons".

All files can be opened and play correctly whether they are "label icons" or "thumbnailed icons".

When I try to delete or move the "thumbnailed icons" everything works perfectly. On the other hand, almost anything except correct operation occurs with "label icons".

For example, when I try to Empty a 16.1 MB "label icon" from the Recycle Bin, I get a box that says "Deleting 1 item (16.1 MB) - From Recycle Bin - 0 items discovered (0 bytes) - under More Information: From: Recycle Bin - Time Remaining: Calculating... - Items Remaining: 1 (16.1 MB) - Speed: 0 bytes/sec" and the progress bar shows a small bar moving across it from left to right but the progress bar never turns into a solid line.

This box never changes and is shown in Task Manager as a Running Application. The only way to absolutely get rid of the box is to end the task using Task Manager. Using the Cancel key or the X to close may or may not close the box.

When I try to move a "label icon" to another location or click delete sometimes it will move to the new location or the Recycle Bin or I get the box described above.

I can only guess that the problem stems from not being able to get the thumbnail information and that the drastically reduced speed of the address bar is a symptom of trying to find the info.

I have done the following:

Tools->Folder Options->View->unchecked Always show icons, never thumbnails

From Brink's tutorial:
(Thumbnails in Windows Explorer)

2. To Enable Windows Explorer Thumbnails -

A) Click on the download button below to download the Enable_Explorer_Thumbnails.reg file.

3. Click on Save, and save the .reg file to the Desktop.
4. Right click the .reg (On Desktop) file and click Merge.
5. Click on the Run button for Security Warning pop-up.
6. Click on Continue (UAC), Yes, and then OK when prompted.
7. When done, you can delete the .reg file (On Desktop).
8. Logoff and logon, or restart the computer to apply changes.

So far, no joy

Any and all help greatly appreciated as this is driving me crazy (normally a pretty short drive anyway).

Windows Vista Home Premium
32 bit Operating System
Service Pack 1
Dell Inspiron 530
Intel Core Duo CPU E4500 @ 2.20GHz 2.20GHz
RAM 2.00 Gb
Hard Drive: 288 GB 119 GB Used 168 GB Free
Compress this drive to save space Not Checked
Index this drive for faster searching Checked

**Brink** · 07-30-2008

Hi Smilinged,

Loading the thumbnails real slow or not all of them can happen sometimes when you have a large folder of video files.

Are you low on drive space for the drive or partition that Vista is installed on? This can cause there not to be enough room for the thumbnail cache.

See if clearing the thumbnail cache can help any. This tutorial will show you how to if needed.
Thumbnail Cache

It would not be a bad ideal to also run a sfc /scannow command to see if it can find and fix and bad system files. This tutorial will show you how to if needed.
System Files - SFC Command

Hope this helps,
Shawn

smilinged · 08-02-2008

Shawn, thank you for your fast response and my apologies for my slow thank you.

I redid your reg edit procedure and now all works fine - I'm guessing that I must have made an error somewhere for it not to take the first time. I will also do both other steps in the near future as they seem to be good things to do.

Once again a big thank you - you and your compatriots are the only reason I haven't demanded

a replacement with XP!

**Brink** · 08-02-2008

LOL, your welcome SmilingEd. I'm happy to hear that you got it sorted out.

Shawn

fredhoward · 08-14-2008

Shawn, I have exactly the same problem with Thumbs in Vista. I see them on all file types except saved web pages. I save them as ".mht" files. I'm running Vista home premium SP1 64bit. I've been at this for weeks now and have followed all the advice here, to no avail. I've just successfully downloaded and installed your regedit file and also ran "scannow" which found no problems. I enclose a screenie of my registry's "Explorer" entries. I have no problems with jpgs, bmps, all movie clips, etc, but no Web page thumbs. Are we saying that there definitely should be Web thumbs in Vista ? Another site told me that it was removed in IE7, but I also run XP SP3 with IE7 and Web thumbs are there.
Desperate, Fred

fredhoward · 08-14-2008

Shawn,
As an exercise I downloaded the "disable thumbnails" registry fix and installed it. It successfully showed up in the registry and also disabled thumbnails !
See here:-

I then hoped that reinstalling the "enable thumbs" registry data would maybe now do the trick, but it didn't. As I said before, I see all thumbs except those related to web pages.
Thank you, Shawn.
Fred

**Brink** · 08-14-2008

Hello Fred,

As far as I know there is not a option for thumbnails for the .mht file types in Vista. A workaround is to turn on the Preview Pane in the Windows Explorer window with the .mht files in it. When you highlight a .mht file, you will see it in the Preview Pane instead.

Preview Pane in Vista Windows Explorer

Hope this helps,
Shawn