Re: Thumbnails Missing in Vista Explorer Large & Extra Large View

[Antonio_...@adobeforums.com]

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.

[Josh...@adobeforums.com]

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.

[da...@adobeforums.com]

Ah, I finally got my PDF thumbnail preview images back after following Kochin's "Run Disk Cleanup" advice.

Thanks!

[Philip_Ki...@adobeforums.com]

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....

[ze_...@adobeforums.com]

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!

[KlausHe...@adobeforums.com]

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.

[Randy_...@adobeforums.com]

Well I am completely confused. But not really, I think.

I DO WANT THE THUMBNAILS. And was not getting them (folder option was appropriately unchecked). I got a clue from these posts to download Reader 9 which I did. I already had Acrobat Pro 9 installed (but no reader).

That gave me the preview I desired. However, when I went back to associating files to Pro (which is what I want) that is when this hiccup occurs.

If I had previously viewed the thumbnail then Pro 9 kept that thumbnail. If I go to to a folder that hasn't been previewed with Reader while it was the associated program of record, then no go.

How weird is that?

And I have paid for PRO and it won't preview? But free reader does? Please someone shoot me an answer before I do that to my laptop.

UGH!

[Cory...@adobeforums.com]

I am also having this problem in 64-bit Windows Vista Ultimate.

I do not have the "always show icons, never thumbnails" folder option checked. I have attempted to "Repair installation" from within the Adobe products. Thumbnails that have already been generated show up correctly, but documents that do not have thumbnails yet just have the standard Adobe icon. It used to work correctly on this system, but an update (either from Adobe or Microsoft) caused it to quit working. I have tried uninstalling and re-installing Adobe Reader 9.0.0. I have tried installing Adobe Acrobat 9.0 Pro Trial also, and neither worked although the Pro install temporarily made the problem worse.

Prior to installing the Pro Trial, I could cause the thumbnails to be generated by going into the Reader product, Selecting "File->Open", navigating to a directory, and choosing "Large Icons" from the file explorer widget. It would generate the thumbnails _inside_ the Reader product, and they would subsequently be available from the file explorer (for that directory). After the Pro Trial install, not even this worked anymore. I was able to return to the previous behavior starting a privileged command prompt and running regsvr32 on PDFPrevHndlr.dll and PDFShell.dll. Failure to use a privileged command shell will result in an 0x80070005 error when running DllRegisterServer. These two DLLs are obviously involved in the broken behavior. Another missing feature that I believe is clearly related is that the PDF tab is missing when you select "Properties" from the right-button context menu in File explorer.

My best guess is that there's a permissions problem on Windows Vista (perhaps only 64-bit) that prevents the installer from correctly registering the shell extensions, resulting in a complete absence of all file explorer related features. It would be really great if a moderator or someone from Adobe could acknowledge that there seems to be a problem here. I've tried reporting a bug, but I don't have high hopes that it will get noticed.

If you're experiencing a similar problem, please join in with a short comment and let's see if we can't identify whether this problem is Vista specific and/or 64-bit specific so that hopefully someday Adobe will fix it.

[Secur...@adobeforums.com]

The problem with missing thumbnail images no longer exists with Adobe Reader version 9.0.0 on my Vista Home (service pack 1) operating system. I think Adobe fixed the problem.

[Jana_...@adobeforums.com]

I have Vista Home Premium 64 bit. I USED to have thumbnails showing up, but all of a sudden in the past week or so, they disappeared! I have not done anything with Adobe, but I HAVE installed a lot of Microsoft updates! I suspect that one of those is probably at fault. My older Dell is almost useless right now because of a corrupt SP3 update that I installed and CAN'T REMOVE! I have tried several of the "fixes" on this forum, but nothing works. Maybe I will try uninstalling updates from a few days ago and back. Maybe I will find the culprit that way! If I do, I will post what I found here.

[Jim_L_...@adobeforums.com]

How do I create a list index instead of thumbnails with adobe reader 9?

[Jim_S...@adobeforums.com]

I have Adobe Acrobat 8.1.3 Standard and I had long ago uninstalled Adobe Reader. I have had no thumbnails for some time. Well, tonight I managed to fix mine. I used almost all of the methods listed above, mostly with no success..
--I ran the disk cleanup.
--I ran a registry cleaner. (probably not needed.)
--I ran the Repair from the Control Panel-Programs.
--I tried changing file associations.
None of this worked.
Then
--I opened a command prompt as administrator and searched for the two files CoreyCohen mentioned above using a /s to find the subdirectory.
--I ran regsvr32 on each of them.
--I then ran the repair from within Acrobat.
--I rebooted and the thumbnails came back!
--I am happy.

I hope this helps someone else!

[John_D...@adobeforums.com]

For what it's worth, a clean, virgin install of Reader 9 on a clean, virgin install of Windows 7 64-bit beta produces...no thumbnails at all. Zero. zilch. Thumbnails and previews generally in Windows 7 are more convenient and better than Vista. But click on a pdf file and you just get 'no preview available'.

Reader also cannot update its own updater, which crashes, and which apparently is a prerequisite to updating Reader itself.

Since Win7 is beta, you can't demand anything of anybody; everybody is off the hook for a while. But it's unfortunate that while there are plenty of good improvements in Win 7, apparently cooperation between Microsoft and Adobe is not one of them.

Fortunately my thumbs on Vista32 (where I have CS3) still work, although even there, with Acrobat 8 pro, they disappeared for a while last year.

It's truly idiotic that in a world where PDF is as universal as any file format; where jpg, png, gif previews unfailingly work; and where so much of the PDF code is publicly available that dozens of free PDF writers are available and Microsoft Office can create PDF -- in such a world, it's ridiculous that Msft doesn't implement its own thumbnail solution. But then, if you don't have Office installed, you can't get previews of Word files either.

Windows 7 mostly rocks, but this part of MSFT's thinking I will NEVER understand. Nor can I understand why Adobe doesn't see that it's in their interest to devote the resources to making this stuff work. Plenty of users bitch about 'reader bloat'. Plenty of users use it only while holding their nose. The easier Adobe makes it to glance at your pdf files and quickly open the one you want, the more people will appreciate the product, and, eventually, the more people will buy the PAY product.

[Cory...@adobeforums.com]

Thank you very much Jim Salsano! I was checking on this thread again and noticed your post mentioning that my suggestion had helped fix your thumbnail problem. I was about to respond with a congratulations and some frustration that it did not fix my problem. That's when I noticed that you ran your repair _after_ running regsvr32 on those DLLs. I made my multiple attempts to repair _before_ running regsvr32, and it did not fix my problem. Apparently this bit of ordering is important, because my thumbnails are back now! :-)

Hopefully they'll stay for a while...

[ale...@adobeforums.com]

I'm using Vista 64 Ultimate, Acrobat Reader 9.0

Ran regsvr32 on both both the DLLs mentioned above
Ran repair from in Acrobat
Rebooted

aaaaand.... Still no thumbnails :(

[ale...@adobeforums.com]

On Vista x64, running 32 bit explorer thus:

Start -> Run:

%windir%\SysWOW64\explorer.exe /separate, /root, c:

Opens 32 bit explorer and the previews work, so I guess 64bit = no thumbnails, period. x(

[John_D...@adobeforums.com]

Almost identical situation in Windows 7 64-bit:

-------------------------------------------------
run regsvr on both DLLs
- no thumbnails

-----------------------------------------------------
do a 'repair install' of Reader 9 from control panel > programs and features
- still no thumbnails

-----------------------------------------------------
run 32-bit explorer:
- thumbnails YES.
- Previews, NO. You get an error message referencing PDFPrevHndlr.dll (Explorer's preview feature has been somewhat changed and enhanced in Win7 vs. Vista, so this is not a real surprise.)

-----------------------------------------------------
run regular (64-bit) explorer on directories where thumbs were generated by 32-bit explorer:
- thumbnails still YES.
- Previews still NO. You get a generic message 'this file can't be previewed'

-----------------------------------------------------
btw: for those getting a regsvr error msg, try enclosing the whole file path in quotes, e.g.:
-- type CMD in start search
-- r-click on CMD.exe (should be top result), choose 'run as administrator'
-- this opens CMD in system folder
-- type your command and press ENTER. The whole command line will look like this:
C:\Windows\system32>regsvr32 "C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Reader 9.0\Reader\PDFPrevHndlr.dll"

[Hannah_T.@adobeforums.com]

Hi,
I'm using Window XP. I don't really know what it's missing, here's the problem: when trying to open the pdf document as usual (i.e. on desktop), it appeared as "no preview available," then I open a blank pdf (start, program, adobe 9) & open the file from there, it works.
Please help.
I've uninstalled & installed a few times already.
Thanks again.

[Chris_...@adobeforums.com]

I've found a method to bring the PDF thumbnails back to the 64 bit Explorer that has worked three times on two different Vista 64 bit systems, and lets you continue to use Adobe's products. I hope this helps someone out:

1) Uninstall Adobe Reader / any other readers. (We tried leaving Acrobat Pro 8 installed on one machine and this still worked... no guarantees though!)
2) Install PDF-XChange Viewer (Free), but do NOT allow it to become the default PDF viewer. You can get this from <http://www.docu-track.com/home/prod_user/PDF-XChange_Tools/pdfx_viewer/>
3) Run PDF-XChange Viewer. Again, do NOT allow it to become the default PDF viewer.
4) Check for updates using the "Help | Check for Updates..." menu item
5) Install the shell extensions update it offers, and close PDF-XChange Viewer
6) Install Adobe Reader 9.
7) Run the disk cleaner and remove all thumbnails
8) Reboot

It seems like a lot of steps, but as I said above, it has worked three times on two different Vista 64 machines.

If you let PDF-XChange Viewer become the default PDF viewer, everything seems to be okay for a little while, but my experience was that the thumbnails stopped being updated.

Good luck!

[John_D...@adobeforums.com]

That sounds interesting. If I have time this weekend, I'll try it in Windows 7 64-bit and report back.(No Acrobat in this installation; that's on the Vista partition; my Win7 is Reader-only).

In the meantime, version 9.1 of Reader has made some progress. In Win7 64-bit, any folder that you browse using Reader's own Open/Save dialog box will now automatically generate the thumbs for any PDF you selected from that dialog box, whether you actually opened it or not. They will be viewable in either 32- or 64-bit Explorer thereafter. Although in this case (I'm guessing here) you'll LOSE the thumbs if you do a Windows disk cleanup.

[Chris_...@adobeforums.com]

You know, I'd like to give Adobe the benefit of the doubt, but what you're describing makes me think Reader 9.1 is doing something simple: It's using the 32 bit Explorer Open/Save box. Essentially it's doing the same thing that alexjm describes a few messages back: on a 64 bit Vista machine, creating thumbnails works in the 32 bit file Explorer, and those thumbnails will then be displayed in the 64 bit file Explorer. (Or at least that's what I've seen it do.)

[John_D...@adobeforums.com]

And I wonder if one of the reasons the PDF-Xchange trick works is that IT installs to the 64-bit program files folder (even though I assume it's a 32-bit program). RealPlayer also installs to the 64-bit folder on Windows 7 64-bit, although I KNOW it's a 32-bit program. When I first saw it doing this, I feared none of its plug-ins etc would work--but they work fine.

Makes me wonder if the simplest hack would simply be to force Reader9 to install to the 64-bit program files (the installer does give you the option to change the default destination). But that experiment will have to wait for another time.

At any rate, I can confirm that the PDF-Xchange trick does work on Windows 7 64-bit as well, so thanks, Chris, for, um, giving us a thumbnail preview of that trick. Well, for MOST pdf files, anyway. I found a few that wouldn't show thumbnails, but that may be a function of what program created them and how. (These are not MY pdfs - they're just accumulated research from all over on all subjects. If it were just things I had created with Creative Suite, I would just use Bridge. But the vast majority of PDF use is by business and office users on business and office computers, who have neither Bridge nor any other Adobe product except Reader and/or Acrobat. I would think Adobe would want to keep them happy.)

'Thumbnails' is actually a bit of a misnomer in both Vista and Win7. There's no longer a 'thumbnails' choice among explorer views. Thumbnails are created automatically for filetypes where a preview handler is registered, and they show up in most of the View modes (though not in details, thankfully).

The actual preview function for PDF (as opposed to a generated thumbnail) still does not work, but I'm not surprised. I do not remember if it ever worked in Vista, but my hunch is not. I do not by default keep previews on (slows things down), and in Vista it takes so ridiculously many steps to get to the preview button that you may as well have opened the file. In Windows 7 it's a one-click button on the toolbar.

The next time I boot to Vista (which is on another drive, and is 32-bit, and does have CS3 unlike my Win7 business drive, but which I almost never boot to any more), I'll refresh my memory by checking out whether 'preview' works there.

[Chris_...@adobeforums.com]

The PDF-Xchange is a real 64bit app. If you have a look at your task manager when it's running you won't see the "*32" nesxt to "PDFXCview.exe". You will see it next to all the acrobat files, though.

I've got the FoxIt preview handler working on this Vista 64 machine, so I guess it is possible to do.

I've been trying to track down how this thumbnail problem works, simply because I'm not happy with having to do computer voodoo to get something to work. :) No real luck so far, except for noticing that a 64bit app called "dllhost" runs while the PDF thumbnails are being generated. I'm guessing that it hosts the 32 bit thumbnail generator, but I really don't know.

Regretfully, I find myself moving further away from Acrobat due to the 64 bit issues. PDF-Xchange never shows that blank area, no scrollbar, etc, problem that Acrobat does on 64 bit. Bluebeam's PDF Revu handles most editing and includes a print to PDF driver. It's kind of sad to see Adobe lose ground simply by not fixing problems.