Windows XP Thumbnails preview – Image preview bug: SOLUTION!

H
Posted By
Ho
Apr 1, 2004
Views
1975
Replies
59
Status
Closed
I bumped this back to the front because I’d like to know if the idea I posted previously actually works. For *me* to find out, I’d have to do a clean install of XP… no thanks, I’d rather someone just tell me.

MacBook Pro 16” Mockups 🔥

– in 4 materials (clay versions included)

– 12 scenes

– 48 MacBook Pro 16″ mockups

– 6000 x 4500 px

DM
dave_milbut
Apr 2, 2004
howard, if you see this, there’s a guy in another thread w/similar (iirc) save as problem as you… check it out… did you solve yours?

daniel a bailey ""save as" problem" 4/1/04 7:33pm </cgi-bin/webx?13/4>
FY
Frank_Yans
Apr 2, 2004
Ho, I did not use your appraoch. See my note on what I did.
H
Ho
Apr 2, 2004
See my note on what I did.

I would love to. Where is it?
FY
Frank_Yans
Apr 3, 2004
Sorry, sent the mewsage to the wrong box
DM
dave_milbut
Apr 3, 2004
post it here frank, no?
DH
Debbie_Howard
Apr 4, 2004
Len Hewitt wrote in response to my question on where to place the psicon.dll file in Windows XP:

The same place it is on your win98 machine would seem sensible – \program files\common files\adobe\shell

Placing the psicon.dll file in this folder in WIN XP works. No Registry hack is necessary. Just set your Windows Explorer to thumbmail or filmstrip view.

Debbie Howard
FY
Frank_Yans
Apr 4, 2004
Debbie,
Please allow me to be certain of smething. When you place this .dll file as explained do the file icons on your dektop, not in a folder, become mini-thumbnails with a file sufix as a frlag?
H
Ho
Apr 4, 2004
Frank,

Icons will NOT become thumbnails no matter where they are. In order to view your PSD files with Explorer, they *must* be in a folder with View Thumbnails ((or, apparently, Filmstrip (thanks Debbie)) enabled. Anything more involves the reg hack and the possibility of experiencing the file saving woes that caused Adobe to yank this function out of PS in the first place.
DH
Debbie_Howard
Apr 4, 2004
Frank Yans wrote:

Debbie,
Please allow me to be certain of smething. When you place this .dll file as explained do the file icons on your dektop, not in a folder, become mini-thumbnails with a file sufix as a frlag?

Errr, not exactly but some pretty horrible things started happening to my programs and then the whole system became unstable and the desktop froze. So if you followed my advice, get rid of the psicon.dll file immediately! Sorry. It was worth a try but it hasn’t worked out. I think the only way to view .psd thumbnails safely without having PS7 installed is to get the free Ifran View or buy Ulead Photo Explorer 8 (which I would personally recommend as you can open your chosen file directly in Photoshop for editing). Both these programs will let you view .psd files without having to open them in Photoshop all the time.
FY
Frank_Yans
Apr 5, 2004
Ho,
I do not beleive this is so. In fact, I know what you say is not accurate. When I was using PS 7 in XP Pro my desktop file icons where little tiny thumbnails and not the generic box with a square, triangle and circle. Then I switched to Photo Shop CS and lost this feature FOR FILES CREATED IN PHOTOSHOP CS ONLY! My graphic files from Canvas still are little bitsy thumbnails. This is an absolute fact. There were no instabilities in Win XP Pro then or now.

An Adobe help person said that something was removed from Version CS.

Frank M. Yans
H
Ho
Apr 5, 2004
Ok, Frank. Go with what you know.
CD
Carol_Deuel
Apr 5, 2004
As a followup to this, I don’t want to reload PS7 since I’ve installed the CS Suite, and the psicon.dll is hidden in the install files on the PS7 cd, but I did find the psicon.dll on the web, but it says version 6.

If I put this in the right folder, should it work for enabling thumbnail view in Explorer?

I don’t want to crash my system as I did a complete overhaul before installing the CS Suite. System is running perfect now, and I sorta like it that way!

Carol
RM
Rick Moore
Apr 5, 2004
The version 6 psicon.dll has display problems with CS.
DH
Debbie_Howard
Apr 6, 2004
Carol,

After the experiences I had when I transferred the psicon.dll file from PS7 from another computer on to my Win XP Pro machine, I would not recommend it. It worked OK for about 10 minutes and I could view PSD files in Windows Explorer (set to thumbnail or filmstrip view) but then things started to go seriously wrong with my desktop and I could not open any programs. Eventually the whole desktop froze. Removing the psicon.dll file sent everything back to normal. I did not try any Registry hack though and just installed the file, but I was not happy with the results 🙁
CD
Carol_Deuel
Apr 6, 2004
The version 6 psicon.dll has display problems with CS.

Are there different issues using the psicon.dll between XP and W2K? I never has problems with PS 7 and viewing thumbnails in W2K Explorer, and I’m wondering if it’s really an XP issue.

Thanks Derrick, I won’t try version 6, but am wondering if version 7 will work with W2K. I don’t have access to it, and have yet to find it on the net, and am not going to install PS 7 over my CS. No way!

Any other advise on regaining the thumbnail view in Explorer is most appreciated.

Carol
DM
dave_milbut
Apr 6, 2004
I’m hoping one day a kind adobe engineer will provide us with a COMPLETELY UNSUPPORTED reg file that includes all the proper key entries…

(hint, hint!!!)
CC
Cristofer_Cruz
Apr 8, 2004
Hello All,

I am not an Adobe engineer, but I have created a patch that installs the proper keys to get thumbnails to work. It took a while to find all of them, and I ruined one Photoshop CS install in the process. I have a working patch which is working on 3 of my home machines. Keep in mind that this patch is unofficial.

The archive includes all the files you need. It also includes installation and unsinstallation instructions.

Feel free to distribute this patch to anyone who you like.

Here is the url to download the patch:
< http://home.earthlink.net/~comrade_cruz/apps/ps.cs.t.patch.z ip>

Cheers!
CD
Carol_Deuel
Apr 8, 2004
but I have created a patch that installs the proper keys to get thumbnails to work.

So, whose is going to be the brave soul to try this out? If it works we should all kow tow to Cristofer at least 100 times!

Carol
CC
Cristofer_Cruz
Apr 8, 2004
!! Ok, I found a big problem with it. !!

Not with the install, but with the uninstall.

NO ONE RUN THE UNINSTALL .reg file i’ll release a fixed one in a bit
CC
Cristofer_Cruz
Apr 9, 2004
Hello All,

Ok, I fixed the problem. It was just a problem with the Uninstall.reg file. Nothing should be wrong if you tried to Install it, but make sure to re-download it to get the fixed Uninstall.reg! Sorry about that everyone. Next time i’ll be more careful, and remember to check the uninstall as well as the install.

Cheers :-\
K
killbinladen
Apr 9, 2004
Cristofer Cruz –

applied the patch and did everything you said in the readme file and still i cannot preview the files in windows explorer w/ thumb nails.
K
killbinladen
Apr 9, 2004
Cristofer Cruz –
ok i restarted my pc and now the psd icons are really screwed up. i get thegeneric windows icon. i think you are putting out a really bad patch on purpose.
CC
Cristofer_Cruz
Apr 9, 2004
"killbinlaned" –

I am sorry this is happening to you. Please contact me through a IM client so I can help you out.

AIM: Comrade Cruz
MSN:

I’ll try and find out what is happening to "killbinladen" maybe this can be fixed. For now, I advise that nobody download the patch.
K
killbinladen
Apr 9, 2004
Cristofer Cruz –
NEVER MIND WHAT IS SAID-

YOU ARE A STUD IT WORKED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
K
killbinladen
Apr 9, 2004
I AM SO HAPPY IT WORKED IT DIDN’t READ THE READ ME PROPERLY. DUH I HAD TO OPEN THE FILE WITH NOTEPAD AND REPLACE X FOR C. i am such a lameo! and i guess my reading comp. is bad too.
K
killbinladen
Apr 9, 2004
My life just got simpler i love you man!!!!
CC
Cristofer_Cruz
Apr 9, 2004
WOW, You scared me there for a while I though I had released a tragic patch. So now let me set it all straight.

QUOTE: killbinladen
"I AM SO HAPPY IT WORKED…"

So as you can see this patch does work for 3 of my computers and for "killbinladen."

!!! JUST MAKE SURE YOU READ THE INSTRUCTIONS BEFORE APPLYING THE PATCH : IT IS A CRUCIAL STEP : IF YOU DON’T FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS, IT WILL NOT WORK !!!

The archive includes all the files you need. It also includes installation and unsinstallation instructions.

Feel free to distribute this patch to anyone who you like.

Here is the url to download the patch:
< http://home.earthlink.net/~comrade_cruz/apps/ps.cs.t.patch.z ip>

Cheers!
AC
Andrew_Curatola
Apr 9, 2004
Cristofer, I also tried it and it worked, hats off to you. I was having a problem understanding Step #2 in your Instructions, The breakthrough came when Killbinladen (Post#44)sort of cleared up what I had to do with the (3) x:\\ that had to be changed to C:\\ in Notepad. I also thank you Killbinladen. Thanks again Cristofer.
Andrew
AC
Andrew_Curatola
Apr 9, 2004
Sorry I meant Kilbinladen Step #42 not 44 when I saw the light. Andrew
K
killbinladen
Apr 9, 2004
Adobe dropped the ball on this one thats was the stupidest thing they could have left out. i thought i had a virus or something they should have made it clear that they left it out. Shame on them!!!
CC
Chris_Cox
Apr 9, 2004
kill bin – read the rest of the threads, there was a VERY good reason for dropping this.
DM
dave_milbut
Apr 10, 2004
they should have made it clear that they left it out.

you mean like in the *gasp* readme.txt file?!! Maybe adobe should rename that DontReadMeOrYoullDestroyTheWorld.txt.
CD
Carol_Deuel
Apr 10, 2004
I’m reading all these messages with great interest. Every reference is to XP, so I’m wondering of Cristofer’s fix works with W2K.

I also understand that Adobe left this feature out for a reason, one I never experienced, so it’s all academic right now. Was is primarily an XP problem, or did everyone else experience it. I’ve used both Win 98 and W2K, and never had a problem viewing PSD thumbnails.

Cristofer, have you tried your file on a W2K machine?

Carol
CC
Cristofer_Cruz
Apr 10, 2004
Carol Deuel –

Sorry I don’t have a 2k machine to test this out on :-\
CC
Chris_Cox
Apr 10, 2004
No, 2K had the same problems.
K
killbinladen
Apr 10, 2004
yo Chris Cox,

read the rest of the posts in order. i never ever had any problems with any other version of photoshop and i go back to version 4. so i say it again they dropped the ball GUY! they should of at least given the option at install its a very very simple, but important feature.
DM
dave_milbut
Apr 10, 2004
chris, what do you make of the reg file that’s been posted? does it about cover it?
CC
Cristofer_Cruz
Apr 11, 2004
Hello All,

I made one last update. I removed the need to open up the reg file and make the drive letter change. I guess the majority of people leave their letters as C:\. The process should now be much more simple.

You should still read the instructions before anything to insure success!

The download link is still the same:
< http://home.earthlink.net/~comrade_cruz/apps/ps.cs.t.patch.z ip>

Cheers 🙂
CC
Chris_Cox
Apr 12, 2004
Dave – I haven’t read the reg file.

But anything that reactivates the old DLL is bad news.
DM
dave_milbut
Apr 13, 2004
But anything that reactivates the old DLL is bad news.

well, yea, in general, but lots of folks never had a problem with it. and lots are reactivating it anyway and hacking around in their registry. it would be great for those who want to use the functionality completley at their own risk to be able to do so.

I was just hoping you’d do those folks a kindness and say yea, that’s about all of em, or no, you’re missing xy and z. all the keys should mostly be encapsulated in one location in the code, right? couln’t you peek in and compare the list?

I completely understand if you can’t but it’d be a real boon to those who’re insisting they NEED the feature (note, i’m not in that group, i’m just kinda advocating for them). Cristofer has been kind enough to suss it out (I did it months ago, but never created the reg file, just listed the keys here), it’d be cool if you could say "yea" or "nay".

As a bonus, us regulars could say "you want thumbs in explorer back so bad? here’s an unsupported reg patch. but the dll itself has been known to trash files and if you reactivate it, you MAY have problems. if you have problems, remove it immediately." instead of just throwing up our hands. 🙂

thanks for considering… dave
RM
Rick Moore
Apr 13, 2004
Dave, one thing to consider with the link is that it also includes a download of the dll file, which is Adobe’s property and shoudn’t be be made available without permission, I would think. And Adobe has made it clear that they do not want it used for this purpose, I believe we are on our own with this one
DM
dave_milbut
Apr 13, 2004
which is Adobe’s property and shoudn’t be be made available without permission

Derrick, I completely agree, I didn’t go there to check it out. I just dl’d the reg file from the first link. Christofer should remove that as he has no right or license to distribute it.

The reg file should only be usable by those who already have the dll. If they don’t (if CS is the first owned version of photoshop) then they’re not "missing" anything in their workflow. ie. they don’t have to change their workflow, they need to develop a (new) workflow for a new product and they’ve never had a system that relied on PS’s ablity to view thumbs in explorer.

I believe we are on our own with this one

no, i agree, still, it wouldn’t hurt if we could get a little unofficial input from a more knowlegable unofficial source… unofficially. 🙂
GT
George_Triay
Apr 20, 2004
Wow, what a bunch of babies!! So what, if it works fine, if it don’t, oh well. I just wish ADOBE would fix the problem instead of just REMOVING a VERY useful option. After all we did fork out a BIG chunk of cash for CS!!!! An official patch would be nice.

ADOBE, shame on you for not providing us with an choice or a fully functional software, I never had any problems before nor did anyone I know.
H
Ho
Apr 20, 2004
George,

Adobe blames Microsoft, Microsoft blames (fill in the blank (with Adobe, perhaps?)), and the consumer gets left holding the product with one valuable feature removed.

Use the RegHack provided in this thread. It comes with an uninstaller so it’s pretty much without risk. If it works for you, your troubles are over. FWIW, the icon preview caused me no issues through PS6.x. It did cause me a problem in W2k when I enabled the preview for CS (file saving issues). That’s why I resorted to placing the dll file in its prescribed location and NOT hacking the registry… this enabled the Windows Explorer Thumbnail View for me. Not the best solution, but better than using the cursed File Browser.
KT
keith_tromer
Apr 22, 2004
<<Use the RegHack provided in this thread>>

Where is the link to the reg hack… Not viewing thumbnails is driving me nuts! Anyone know why this happens to some, but not all people?

Keith
DM
dave_milbut
Apr 22, 2004
click show all messages
CD
Carol_Deuel
Apr 23, 2004
Finally got brave and extracted the psicon.dll from Christofer’s zip file and placed it in the correct location on my HD . . . and now I can view psd thumbnails in Explorer. Thank goodness.

What was really bugging me is not being able to seem then in a "save as" dialogue box.

And don’t come down on me for using Christofer’s dll file. I own full versions of PS 6, 7 and now CS, so I’ve paid for it many times over 🙂 !

As long as it does not crash my system I’m good to go. BTW, this is on a W2K machine.

Carol
DM
dave_milbut
Apr 23, 2004
And don’t come down on me for using Christofer’s dll file. I own full versions of PS 6, 7 and now CS, so I’ve paid for it many times over

but do you know that that’s the original dll? XD
CD
Carol_Deuel
Apr 23, 2004
but do you know that that’s the original dll?

I could not see the smiley face in my email version of your message, and I was ready to come here and defend myself, but even though it’s a blue smile I’ll lighten up.

I’m going to give Christofer the benefit of the doubt and assume he provided a "good" dll file, one from Adobe, just like the ones on my cds roms . . . the ones I cannot get to because they are in the install file.

Adobe has to do something about this. They cannot cripple everyone’s machines just because some people had problems. Just think of the stuff we Go Live users go thru just to insure that the program works without crashing. And believe me, I had to do a lot to make it work with W2K . . . worked fine under Win98.

Carol
CC
Cristofer_Cruz
Apr 24, 2004
Hello,

I moved the file to a new location.

<http://home.earthlink.net/~freeware-soft/ps.cs.t.patch.zip>

Late
H
Ho
Apr 24, 2004
They cannot cripple everyone’s machines just because some people had problems…

Well, they did. I would think that it could be made a user pref. Turn it on if you like, turn it off if you don’t. I guess essentially that’s what Cristofer has enabled us to do with his install/uninstall patch. I’m going to Ghost my pristine XP install sometime next week, then give it a shot. I will report my results.
AP
Andrew_Parkhouse
May 13, 2004
Dave milbut asked in message #65

but do you know that that’s the original dll?

I have checked with the one on my system and it is exactly the same one I have. Both were created 06 April 2002, 16:37:24 and were the same file size – 136kb

I was running PS7 before upgrading to Adobe Creative Suite Premium, and only deleted PS7 once I was happy with PsCs. What I did not do was remove any of the shared files, so I guess that is why it was still on my system?

Also the patch that Cristofer Cruz wrote has proved great, as I was annoyed about loosing that facility in PsCs, even though I could see PSD files as thumbs when using the ‘Thumbnails’ or ‘Filmstrip’ options, but not ‘Icons’

Also, to Cristofer Cruz,

Well done and thank you for taking all the time and effort to produce this utility. Andrew
DG
Dana_Gartenlaub
May 14, 2004
Given the complaints of folks who seem to have trouble witn the patch, maybe having an option to turn it on and off is a good idea. Genuine Fractals had to do that when some users (myself included) found that the thumbnail feature in GF was locking up the machine, or at lest taking ten minuites to open a thumbnail.

Why didn’t Adobe implement the same strategy? Perhaps in version 8.0.1 they’ll fix it. I hope.

Meanwhile, I have PS 7 on another machine, I’ll try the patch and if that doesn’t work I’ll just steal the dll off the other machine. After all, I paid for it so I should be able to use it on my CS machine!
DG
Dana_Gartenlaub
May 14, 2004
OK, the patch works on XP Pro. I had forgotten the thumbnail feature, glad to have it back.

Christofer Cruz, you da Man!!
CC
Cristofer_Cruz
May 18, 2004
Hello,

This post is to sum up a lot of the previous posts so that it is easier for people to get the patch.

Issue
————————————–
Adobe removed the ability to view the thumbnails of PSD files from PsCs because of a bug in Windows. Unfortunately, they do not offer the ability to choose weather or not you want that feature. Many people, including myself never came across any problems with the thumbnail viewing in Ps 6 or 7.

Solution
————————————–
I have created a patch to enable, and disable PSD thumbnails in explorer. This will let you see the icon thumbnails, thumbnails in thumbnail folder view, and thumbnails in dialog boxes. The archive includes the dll, which should only be used if you previously owned a copy of Ps 7. It also comes with an Install and an Uninstall.

Here is a list of all the people who have tried the patch successfully. ————————————–
(Me) Cristofer Cruz (WinXP)
killbinladen (WinXP)
Carol Deuel (Win2k)
Andrew Parkhouse(Win ?)
Dana Gartenlaub (WinXP)

Here is the download link for the patch.
————————————–
<http://home.earthlink.net/~freeware-soft/ps.cs.t.patch.zip>

Hasta
AP
Andrew_Parkhouse
May 20, 2004
Cristofer,

I use Win XP Pro, sorry I should have listed it previously.

Andrew
DD
David_Doughman
Jun 6, 2004
Just installed the Cristofer Cruz patch on my WinXP system, did a reboot, just incase, and it works like a charm. Many thanks!
V
vbuchbinder
Jun 14, 2004
Let me tell you about my experience. I have XP pro, Photoshop Elements, 7 and CS. I recently installed Norton Utilities, which does many things, one of which is cleaning out the registry. Before I started to use this program I could see thumbnails for PSD files. After using the registry cleaning feature I started to have problems with iTunes, and Photoshop. The thumbnails for PSD files disappeared.

So, after reading this forum carefully, I decide to uninstall all my PS programs first, rather than digging into the registry – which I’m very hesitent to do. I uninstalled all the PS programs I have, and reinstalled them – Elements first, then 7 and then CS. I now have back the ability to show thumbnails for PSD files. I have no idea why this happens, but I’m happy about it! (And I will start to learn about the registry.)

Thank you for all the ideas presented in this forum.
DM
dave_milbut
Jun 14, 2004
then 7 and then CS. I now have back the ability to show thumbnails for PSD files.

which is what i’ve said (and chris has confirmed) all along. 7 uses the psicon.dll file. probelem is, due to a flaw in windows, users of the dll will occasionally (some more than others) get a "file is locked" error when trying to save a changed image, causing loss of work. if it’s working for you (as it is for me) more power to ya! 🙂

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