Thumbnail Previews not showing in File Explorer again!

[gate1975mlm]

Hello,

I recently did a clean install of Windows 10 Pro 64 Bit latest version and of course installed PDF-XChange Editor Version 7.0 and the Thumbnail Previews for PDF's in File Explorer were all showing as they should. But this morning I saw there was another PDF-XChange Editor update Build 323.1 and so after I installed it I noticed no PDF's in File Explorer are showing the Thumbnail previews. I also went into preferences and under File Associations for Preview handler for pdf files and Thumbnail handler for pdf files and I changed it to yes and and clicked Apply and this does not fix the issue at all.

I have seen this happen in the past as well and it is really getting on my nerves!

How do you fix this and keep it from happening all the time?

And is this and issue with all PDF software on Windows 10 or just PDF-XChange Editor that has this problem?

Thanks

[gate1975mlm]

just to clarify when highlighting a pdf file I do see it in the preview pan in file explorer.

But no Thumbnail previews are showing instead I just see the PDF-XChange Editor icon in File Explorer.

[Tracker Supp-Stefan]

Hello gate1975mlm,

Did you perform a clean install, installed over the existing installation manually, or used e.g. the updater tool?

Regards,
Stefan

[gate1975mlm]

Hello gate1975mlm,

Did you perform a clean install, installed over the existing installation manually, or used e.g. the updater tool?

Regards,
Stefan

I did a clean install, installed over the existing installation manually.

[Paul - Tracker Supp]

Hi gate,

I was about to post an image of my Explorer showing the thumbnails and ask you to confirm that yo have "Medium icons", "Large icons", "Extra Large icons", "Tiles" or "Content selected in the Explorer "View" options because "Details", "List" or "Small icons" will not show a thumbnail when I noticed some of my thumbnails failing . I had a mixture of thumb nails and icons.

To fix this I cleared the thumbnail cache. Run the Windows "Disk Cleanup" utility and deselect all options but "Thumbnails" and click OK. After doing that Explorer rebuilt the thumbnails and all were displayed.

Can you clear your thumbnail cache and check that your view is not "Details", "List" or "Small icons" and let us know if the issue is resolved?

regards

[gate1975mlm]

I just tried clearing the thumbnail cache with disk cleanup and still no thumbnails.

And I am using Large icons.

Really wish I could fix this

[gate1975mlm]

Even when I have a pdf opened and I click save as like to the desktop there is no thumbnail showing for the saved pdf icon.

[Paul - Tracker Supp]

HI gate,

is that Windows Explorer in your screen shot? What is the "Attachments" part? I must confess that doesn't look at all familiar. Perhaps my ignorance is showing, that's not a screen shot from Outlook is it?

You could try re-registering the DLLs again but if the preview pane is working I suspect that's not the issue.

I will ask around here if one of the devs has a better idea. Sorry for the inconvenience.

[Paul - Tracker Supp]

Can you try re-registering the DLLs? https://www.pdf-xchange.com/knowle ... extensions

That article needs to be updated for V7, just adjust the paths and file names to match what V7 has.

Does that fix it?

[gate1975mlm]

Added both regsvr32 "C:\Program Files\Tracker Software\Shell Extensions\XCShInfo.x64.dll'' and regsvr32 "C:\Program Files\Tracker Software\Shell Extensions\XCShInfo.x86.dll"

And unfortunately still no thumbnails showing.

[gate1975mlm]

After trying all that I ended up uninstalling PDF-XChange Editor 7.0 Build 323.1 then restarted the computer then reinstalled again and thumbnails are finally showing again in file explorer for all pdf files.

Uninstalling and reinstalling was the only way I could fix this issue.

What caused this to happen in the first place was when I did a clean install of Build 323.1 over Build 323 existing installation manually.

Is this going to happen everytime I install an update like that?

Is this the wrong way to install new build updates?

[Paul - Tracker Supp]

Hi gate,

it shouldn't require a reinstall. Your experience is not expected nor typical. Updating major versions works better when uninstalling the old first, 7.0.323.0 to 7.0.323.1 however should go right over the top just fine. In neither case should you expect the thumbnails to stop working however and to be honest I cannot explain why you needed to do this to get the thumbnails back.

The question now is "How should we investigate this?" as we do not have a machine that exhibits this behaviour. My suggestion would be to leave it as an unknown for now and if it happens on the next build let us investigate on your PC to see if we can determine why it is doing this.

regards