Pictures do not display as thumbnail preview

Anonymous
2010-02-03T09:23:47+00:00

In Windows 7, I can't get pictures to show as thumbnail previews. I've tried three different methods suggested on this site. Why is this so difficult?__

The three methods I've tried are as follows:

1.    Open the folder in Windows Explorer and click the down arrow next to Views at the top.  Choose Medium icons and see if the thumbnails start working again.

2.    If not, click on Organize, then Folder and Search Options.  Click the View tab.  Make sure that "Always show icons, never thumbnails" does not have a check mark next to it.

3.    Open Control Panel. (Classic View). Click on the System icon. Click on the advanced system settings link. Under Performance, click on the Settings button. In the Visual Effects tab, Check "Show thumbnails instead of icons.”

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Music, photos, and video

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Anonymous
2010-08-16T19:59:31+00:00

Not sure where these answers were going but to simply make your pictures show in thumbnail mode in win7 simply open your pictures folder, click tools, folder options, view, then uncheck "Always show icons, never thumbnails"

Don't forget to hit apply!

That should do it.

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Anonymous
2010-10-30T14:32:38+00:00

Click on the Start button, go to Control Panel.  In Control Panel select System.  From the System window select Advanced system settings.  Select Performance settings.  Be sure the box Show thumbnails instead of icons is checked.

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Anonymous
2010-02-04T05:02:06+00:00

Hi RRWilcox,

You may try the following steps and check whether you can get thumbnail previews.

  1. Open the Pictures library by clicking the Start button, and then clicking Pictures.
  2. In the left pane, click the folder that contains the pictures you want to view.
  3. Click the arrow next to the Views button, and then move the slider to change the size of the thumbnails.

For more information, you may refer the following link:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/View-and-print-picture-thumbnails

You may also try to Enable or disable the thumbnail preview using group policy editor.

Note: The following steps won’t work in home editions of Windows 7.

To do this, follow the steps:

  1. Click on start and type gpedit.msc in start search bar and press enter.
  2. Now navigate to User Configuration, Administrative Templates, and Start Menu and Taskbar in left pan of Group Policy Editor
  3. Locate “Turn off Taskbar Thumbnails” in right pan of Group policy editor and double click on it.
  4. Select Enable or Disable click apply and Press ok
  5. Now check your Taskbar, it shouldn’t show Thumbnails Preview.

Please Note: Taskbar Thumbnail Preview only works when you have Enabled Aero in Windows 7.

Hope this information is helpful.

Praseetha. K.

Microsoft Answers Support Engineer

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  1. Anonymous
    2013-01-26T20:57:59+00:00

    The second method worked for me.  The show icons block under VIEW was checked.  Just unchecked that and viola!  it worked.  Also unclicked another icon box, don't remember which one.

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  2. Anonymous
    2013-02-02T23:43:40+00:00

    Instead of accessing by the network drive letter, I used the UNC path (\IPaddress\sharename) to go into the folder.  If I had it on medium or larger icons it would generate the previews, but this time the address bar would have the green progress bar while generating the thumbnails.  I noticed that the thumbnails would actually change size to slightly smaller.  When it was done, the green progress bar would disappear and then I could refresh the mapped drive window of the same folder and the thumbnails would all be there.   A little bit tedious since I have multiple albums, but I can open the folder and just check back a couple minutes later and then do the next one, so its okay for now.

    BINGO! AWESOME! That worked great. Every other bl--dy thing did not work.

    My symptoms were exactly as you had stated.

    Thanks a tonne.

    Worked for me too! Why drive mappings mess this up is silly. I do it through Picture Library where I have a UNC mapped and it always lists the thumbnails but fails when I use it with a mapped drive to view the same folder.

    The other problem I see, when windows caching messes up, is if you try to move a file to another folder on the same partition (by drag and drop), but one folder is mapped with UNC and the other with a mapped drive, windows does not MOVE the file it only COPIES it. It's the same partition in the same location but unless both source and destination are UNC mapped, drag and drop won't cut/paste to move and you end up with duplicates all over the place. This is bad programming.

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