One of the common problems of Windows 10 users is that thumbnails of images (photos and pictures), as well as videos in Explorer folders are not shown, or black squares are shown instead.

This instruction contains ways to fix this problem and return the display of thumbnails (thumbnails) for preview in Windows 10 Explorer instead of file icons or those same black squares.

Note: displaying thumbnails is not available if “Small icons”, display as a list or table are enabled in the folder options (right click in an empty space inside the folder - View). Also, thumbnails may not be displayed for specific image formats that are not supported by the OS itself and for videos for which codecs are not installed in the system (this also happens if the player you installed installs its own icons on video files).

Enable showing thumbnails (thumbnails) instead of icons in settings

In most cases, in order to enable the display of pictures instead of icons in folders, you just need to change the corresponding settings in Windows 10 (they are present in two places). It's easy to do. Note: If any of the options below are not available or do not change, please refer to the last section of this guide.

First, check whether thumbnail display is enabled in File Explorer settings.

Also, settings for displaying thumbnails of pictures are present in the system performance parameters. You can get to them as follows.

Apply the settings you made and check if the problem with displaying thumbnails has been resolved.

Resetting the thumbnail cache in Windows 10

This method can help if, instead of thumbnails, the explorer begins to display black squares or something else that is not typical. Here you can try deleting the thumbnail cache first and having Windows 10 create it again.

To clear thumbnails, follow these steps:

After this, you can check whether the thumbnails are now displayed (they will be created again).

Additional ways to enable thumbnail display

And just in case, there are two more ways to enable the display of thumbnails in Explorer - using the Registry Editor and the Local Group Policy Editor of Windows 10. In fact, this is one method, just different implementations.

To enable thumbnails in the Registry Editor, do the following:

  1. Open the registry editor: Win+R and enter regedit
  2. Go to the section (folders on the left) HKEY_CURRENT_USER\ SOFTWARE\ Microsoft\ Windows\ CurrentVersion\ Policies\ Explorer
  3. If on the right side you see a value with the name DisableThumbnails, double-click on it and set the value to 0 (zero) to enable icon display.
  4. If there is no such value, you can create it (right click in the empty area on the right - create - DWORD32, even for x64 systems) and set its value to 0.
  5. Repeat steps 2-4 for section HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ SOFTWARE\ Microsoft\ Windows\ CurrentVersion\ Policies\ Explorer

Close Registry Editor. The changes should take effect immediately after the changes, but if this does not happen, try restarting explorer.exe or restarting your computer.

Same thing using the Local Group Policy Editor (only available on Windows 10 Pro and higher):

The preview images should then show in File Explorer.

Well, if none of the described options worked or the problem with the icons differs from the one described, ask questions, I will try to help.

The other day, the laptop stopped displaying thumbnails of pictures in folders. That is, I open “My Documents” -> “Images”, and there...

However, this happens not only in one directory, but throughout the entire disk! Since the situation is not hopeless and is resolved in just less than a minute, what I thought about most was its origin. Accordingly, the first thing I did was not only return the normal appearance of the files (I will describe how I did this later), but also checked the computer for errors and viruses. I didn’t do a system rollback because I decided that if this problem was caused by accident—an ordinary human factor—then there was nothing terrible. And if viruses and serious failures are detected, then I will resort to recovery.

Fortunately, everything worked out - the antivirus did not detect any malware, and the test showed that the system was fine.

Why is the thumbnail of the image not displayed?

It's all about the settings of the folder itself. Open any one and in the upper right corner go to the “Organize” tab -> “Folder and Search Options”.


In the “View” window that opens, uncheck the “Always display icons, not thumbnails” checkbox.

And the final step is to click the “Apply” and “OK” button.

How else can you enable the display of pictures?

To do this, go to the “Start” menu, right-click on “Computer” and select “Properties”.


Then go to the “Advanced” -> “Options” tab.

Pictures are displayed, but only the icon of the program that is used to view images, but it is much more convenient to see thumbnails of photographs. Thumbnails are miniature images, that is, you can immediately select the photo you need from the list, without even opening the picture in a special program.

This problem may occur due to changes in the registry and incorrect folder display settings. Another reason may be that you installed a third-party program along with some application to view images, which in turn may not support the thumbnail view. This situation does not occur often, since the built-in utility has sufficient functionality, and therefore there is no point in developing a new bicycle. So what to do if pictures are not displayed in folders?

First, you should consider a simpler solution to the problem; usually it is enough if you have not used dubious applications or all kinds of cracks.

Display images in thumbnails using File Explorer

  1. Go to any folder using Explorer;
  2. Next, if you have Windows 7, click on the button in the top menu called “Arrange”. If you have Windows XP, you need to click “Tools” in any folder, and select “Folder Options” in the drop-down menu;
  3. In the drop-down list, find the item “Folder and search options”;
  4. Go to the “View” tab;
  5. Uncheck “Always show icons, never thumbnails.”

Similar procedures must be performed in other versions of Windows not described in this method.

SmartScreen - what is it? Changing settings and disabling SmartScreen

If you do not have a checkmark in this item, check it, apply the changes, and then uncheck it again.

This option can also help, but if you still cannot restore the correct display of pictures, you will have to use the second method, which requires using the registry editor.

Restoring the thumbnail view of images using the registry

In general, most failures in the display system are directly related to changes in the registry. It stores almost all the variables used by Windows to personalize the system; if something is displayed for you when it shouldn’t, or vice versa, it’s the fault of the registry settings. Unfortunately, in automatic mode, thanks to programs, this problem is not solved, due to the fact that these settings are personal options that each user is free to set at will.

  • Launch the registry editor, to do this, open the “Run” line by pressing Win + R and enter the keyword regedit or enter this key into the search;
  • Next, go to the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer branch;
  • Find and remove the DisableThumbnails setting;


  • Restart your computer.

Usually this is enough to restore the desired appearance of the images, but there are times when the settings are reset again.

Reasons why the settings are reset again: the first is that the system is infected with viruses, usually manifests itself as a symptom of the disease, because changing the display of thumbnails is not the purpose of viruses.

To solve this problem, use antivirus programs and manipulate the registry again. Another reason is also programs, but not malicious ones. To solve this, you should disable unnecessary applications. If the problem persists, install the program that caused it and configure it correctly.

How to disable unnecessary applications at startup?

1 way

  1. Open the Run line and enter msconfig;
  2. Uncheck applications that you do not want to see when you boot your computer. This action will also have a positive effect on system performance and Windows boot speed.

The Windows desktop has disappeared, what should I do?

Method 2

Another option is to use special programs, for example: to do this, go to the “Tools” tab and select “Startup”.

Restoring images in thumbnails using the “performance” tab

The problem may be caused by the fact that you have turned on the maximum performance mode, usually used by computers with weak characteristics, which also does not have the function of displaying photos in thumbnails. It, in addition to other settings that remove the beautiful view in favor of maximum speed, also removes the display of thumbnails, which can significantly reduce the loading time of a folder that contains many images.

3. You need the “System and Security” group;


4. You will need to click on the “System” link or you can right-click on “My Computer” and click on the “Properties” option;

Instructions

Starting with Windows Vista, page thumbnails are combined with file icons. They work on the principle: if it is possible to make a sketch, then the sketch will be displayed, if not, an icon will be displayed. Unless the settings tell you to always show icons. Therefore, these versions of Windows do not have a Thumbnail option in the View menu.

To turn on the display of thumbnails, open Control Panel and go to the Appearance and Personalization category. Select Folder Options. In the window that opens, go to the “View” tab. Check the box next to “Always show icons, never thumbnails.” If you want the file type icon to appear on the thumbnail, check the box next to “Display file icons in thumbnails.” Click the "Apply" and "OK" buttons.

Next, go to the “Control Panels” “System and Security” category. Enter the “System” subcategory and click on the “Advanced system settings” link located in the left sidebar. In the window that opens, switch to the “Advanced” tab and click the “Options” button for the “Performance” section. Go to the Visual Effects tab and check the box for Show thumbnails instead of icons. Click the "Apply" button and close the settings windows by clicking the "OK" buttons. Windows will now try to display thumbnails when browsing folders.

To disable the display of page thumbnails to improve your computer's performance, uncheck the boxes described in the previous steps.

To configure the size and display type of thumbnails, go to the desired folder. Click on the icon with icons and lines of text located in the upper right corner of Explorer under the search bar. By repeatedly clicking on the “Change View” icon, select the most convenient display for you.

You can immediately set the desired view by clicking on the small triangle next to the icon. It will expand a list with 4 icon sizes available without displaying any additional information about the file. You can also quickly set a view in the “View” context menu item, which opens by right-clicking on an empty area of ​​the folder.

Thumbnails for most files also appear in other views. “Tile” and “Content” - additionally display information about the file size and the date it was last modified. The most detailed information is displayed in the Table view. By default, it additionally displays the file type, but by right-clicking on the column names, you can select additional columns from the list.

08.03.2010 04:32

In some cases, file and folder icons are displayed incorrectly due to incorrect settings, in others due to an outdated cache. Let's look at some possible solutions.

Show thumbnails instead of icons

To display thumbnails as thumbnails for video files and pictures, follow these steps:

2. On the tab View uncheck the box.

3. Click OK.

4. Open Control Panel (View: Large Icons) > System.

5. In the left menu, click Advanced System Settings.

6. On the tab Additionally In chapter Performance click the button Options.

7. In the window that opens, on the tab Visual effects check the box.

8. Click OK.

Resetting the icon cache

When a user opens a folder, Windows 7 caches the icons of all files, folders, and shortcuts stored in it (to increase speed). Sometimes, when icons and folder contents are changed, the cache does not have time to reset and the appearance of the icons does not change even after pressing the F5 button. In such cases, you can manually reset the cache:

2. On the tab View In chapter Hidden files and folders install Show hidden files, folders and drives.

3. Click OK.

4. Paste the address into the address bar of Windows 7 Explorer:

%userprofile%\AppData\Local

and press Enter.

5. In the folder that opens, delete the hidden file.

6. Restart your computer.

After rebooting, Windows 7 will rebuild the cache and create a new IconCache.db file, after which the icons will be displayed correctly.

Note. The cache needs to be rebuilt separately for each account.

In this article we will talk about a common problem with displaying file thumbnails in the Windows 7 operating system, as well as similar ones in 8, Vista and xP. Let's touch on several options for solving this issue; one or more solutions will definitely help fix the display of thumbnails in the OS.

1) A common problem that causes video file thumbnails not to be displayed is an uninstalled set of video extension codecs. The most popular are the K Lite Codec Pack or Windows 7 Codecs, special sets of codecs for audio and video formats. If such a program has already been installed on the computer, but the thumbnails have not yet been displayed correctly, use the player itself, for example, take the Media Player Classic player built into the K-Lite set, you need to open the main settings (Options > Player > Formats) and set Tick ​​us the extensions that should be played by this player and the thumbnails were displayed for this player.

2) It is least likely that you have lost the settings of folders in which there is such an item as “always display icons, not thumbnails.” If the checkbox is checked, you need to uncheck it or click on the button to restore default values ​​and apply the changes. Alternatively, one of the applications changed this option, in most cases this is influenced by all sorts of optimizers and incorrectly configured options or configuration choices, as well as in some cases the classic Windows design option.

3) The next item allows you to manually determine the launch of certain file extensions to launch a particular program installed in Windows. In our case, find video formats (for example, mp4, flv, avi, wmv, etc.) and change the launch to the required player, it can be VLC or Windows Media Player and so on, each of these programs displays video thumbnails in its own style.

4) The following solution, how to restore thumbnails of video formats in Windows 7, helps most users; using the registry, we make changes and make it clear what formats thumbnails should display. I have attached a ready-made registry import for displaying thumbnails in Windows; you can add to it or remove unnecessary items.