Thumbnails are so slow.

[Guest]

Ever since i downloaded one of the XP updates, Windows Explorer is painfully
slow to draw the thumbnails. If I move to another folder and come back it
takes forever for Windows to redraw the thumbnails. I used to have a file
called Thumbs.db, which I guessed is where it stored the thumbnail info, but
I don't have this file anymore. Any suggestions or ideas.

 

[Mary Sauer]

Control panel, folder options, view, clear "do not cache thumbnails." The thumbs.db
will return.
You may need to do a disk cleanup or/and an upgrade to your video driver.
To test the video driver issue, slide down the acceleration on your adapter, control
panel, display, settings tab, advanced button, troubleshoot tab.
It your thumbnails load faster when you do the above then you need to think about
upgrading your video driver.

 

[Guest]

Thanks Mary, I will give it a try.
--
jaym

Control panel, folder options, view, clear "do not cache thumbnails." The thumbs.db
will return.
You may need to do a disk cleanup or/and an upgrade to your video driver.
To test the video driver issue, slide down the acceleration on your adapter, control
panel, display, settings tab, advanced button, troubleshoot tab.
It your thumbnails load faster when you do the above then you need to think about
upgrading your video driver.
--
Mary Sauer MSFT MVP
http://office.microsoft.com/
http://msauer.mvps.org/
news://msnews.microsoft.com

 

[Guest]

Mary,
I checked and the "do not cache thumbnails" was clear.
I also checked the "Show hidden files" box.
How does slowing down the acceleration speed up the performance?

 

[John Inzer]

How does slowing down the acceleration
speed up the performance?

============================

If reducing the Graphics Hardware Acceleration
shows an improvement...it verifies that your video
driver probably needs to be updated.

Additional things to try:

============================
============================

If you are using WinXP and have networked drives
setup as drives in explorer and the networked computer
is not available, you will get these long delays in bringing
up your picture folders, documents folders, etc. As soon
as you disconnect all non-local drives, the problem goes
away.

=============================
=============================

Running Disk Cleanup, Error Checking and
Defrag on a regular schedule is a good idea.

(310312) Description of the Disk Cleanup
Tool in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=310312

(315265) How to Perform Disk Error Checking
in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=315265
(check the two boxes..."Automatically fix file
system errors" and "Scan for and attempt
recovery of bad sectors") the utility will run
the next time you restart your computer.
(run error checking repeatedly until it finds
no errors)

(314848) How to Defragment Your Disk
Drive Volumes in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=314848

 

[Guest]

After a system recovery my thumbs were slow as molasses and I ended up going
to folder options and enabling the viewing of ALL files including protected
and system files.

Then I searched for all thumbs.db files and deleted them.
Then I let xp start rendering them over and it was all fixed and stuff.
however the first time you open a folder you'll have to wait for the new set
of thumbs to be created.

 

[Guest]

Hi
I have had exactly the same problem with thumbnails. I have tried every
single one of your suggestions plus other stuff and nothing seems to work!!!
It's driving me mad. Do you have any other suggestions please? I'm not sure
if this started when I installed one of the windows updates or when I
reinstalled windows. The problem also happens with new photos I have
transferred since I reinstalled windows. Any ideas?
Thanks
Dawn

 

[Guest]

Oh my goodness, I've just found the solution!!!!!!!!!! I m so happy after
days of searching for the answer! Here's the info I found that will fix slow
thumbnails if you have the same problem I did........

Slow file thumbnail preview in Windows XP with Photoshop installed

This is a problem when certain versions of Photoshop are installed on
Windows XP since the thumbnail generation is handled by Photoshop for certain
types of files. We've noted this problem with Photoshop 7 and Elements 2
specifically but may affect other versions.

To fix this problem, right click on any file in your explorer view, select
Properties and you will find a Photoshop Image tab menu. On this menu,
uncheck the Generate Thumbnails checkbox.

How simple....but only when you know! Hope this helps someone else

Dawn