folder thumbnails in special folder corrupted

[nooneinparticular314159]

My folder preview thumbnails (folder thumbnail view) have become
corrupted. All thumbnails, regardless of what the folder contains,
show a picture that I was trying to set for one particular folder of
photos. I was able to correct this for *almost* all folders by
deleting the Windows\Shell\Bags, BagMRU and DUIBags entries in the
registry for both current user and USERS, however this has not
corrected the problem for my folders at the root of one of my drives.
For these folders, every thumbnail still displays a preview of that one
particular folder. So on my D drive, I have about 15 folders, all of
which display as a thumbnail with the same image preview in it
(although a few display thumbnails of the pictures they contain, or
nothing at all.) Using the folder preview property sheet for any of
those folders has no effect at all (including changing the folder type
and trying to reset its view.)

How can I fix this?

Thanks!

 

[nooneinparticular314159]

Apparently, it's even worse than I had previously thought. Dragging an
image into a folder also causes the folder to reset its image to
something completely unrelated - the thumbnail image for the parent
folder! Any idea how to fix this too?

 

[Joe Wright]

Apparently, it's even worse than I had previously thought. Dragging an
image into a folder also causes the folder to reset its image to
something completely unrelated - the thumbnail image for the parent
folder! Any idea how to fix this too?

Try changing the folder type in Properties. Then change back to the
preferred type. Just a thought, not necessarily a cure.

Also see if this site has a cure:

http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks.htm

Restore Thumbnail Views in XP
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/regs_edits/xp_thumbnail.exe

There are seven references to "thumbnail" on that page.

 

[nooneinparticular314159]

I've tried all of the things you suggested already. None worked.

 

[Ramesh, MS-MVP]

Hi,

Try this:

Your view settings or customizations for a folder are lost or incorrect:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/813711

*and*

With this done, Windows XP still maintains the thumbnail cache of the folder
picture. You will need to enable Windows Explorer to Show all files and then
delete the file thumbs.db inside the particular folder.

See also:

Unable to remove the Thumbnail image for system folders in Windows XP?:
http://www.winxptutor.com/folderthumbs.htm

--
Regards,

Ramesh Srinivasan, Microsoft MVP [Windows XP Shell/User]
Windows® XP Troubleshooting http://www.winhelponline.com


I've tried all of the things you suggested already. None worked.

 

[nooneinparticular314159]

Hi. I had tried that already too. It didn't work. (Note: My max
folders remembered has been about 4000 for years, and I am running
SP2.) BUT - I did just find a solution which appears to have
worked...sorta..

First, doing a system restore to 2 days to helped a lot. The problem
seemed to start when I applied a folder setting to all folders, if I
remember correctly. But that didn't solve the problem for folders in
the root of my D drive.

For those, the only thing I could get to work was *individually*
selecting each thumbnail, choosing properties, customize, change icon,
and then resetting the icon to the default. Note, this was the ICON,
not the PICTURE, even though the icon being displayed WAS the picture.
(Huh?) For special folders (documents, music, etc), I had to point the
special folders at another folder using tweak UI, then manually set the
icons to the corret ones by choosing teh correct icon from
%SystemRoot%\system32\SHELL32.dll. This also works for the picture
folders that are displaying some other image instead of image previews.

Any idea why that worked, and why the other solutions did not?

Thanks!

Hi,

Try this:

Your view settings or customizations for a folder are lost or incorrect:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/813711

*and*

With this done, Windows XP still maintains the thumbnail cache of the folder
picture. You will need to enable Windows Explorer to Show all files and then
delete the file thumbs.db inside the particular folder.

See also:

Unable to remove the Thumbnail image for system folders in Windows XP?:
http://www.winxptutor.com/folderthumbs.htm

--
Regards,

Ramesh Srinivasan, Microsoft MVP [Windows XP Shell/User]
Windows® XP Troubleshooting http://www.winhelponline.com


I've tried all of the things you suggested already. None worked.

Try changing the folder type in Properties. Then change back to the
preferred type. Just a thought, not necessarily a cure.

Also see if this site has a cure:

http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks.htm

Restore Thumbnail Views in XP
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/regs_edits/xp_thumbnail.exe

There are seven references to "thumbnail" on that page.

 

[Ramesh, MS-MVP]

Thanks for the update!

Perhaps deleting the hidden thumbs.db file would have done the trick
earlier?

--
Regards,

Ramesh Srinivasan, Microsoft MVP [Windows XP Shell/User]
Windows® XP Troubleshooting http://www.winhelponline.com


Hi. I had tried that already too. It didn't work. (Note: My max
folders remembered has been about 4000 for years, and I am running
SP2.) BUT - I did just find a solution which appears to have
worked...sorta..

First, doing a system restore to 2 days to helped a lot. The problem
seemed to start when I applied a folder setting to all folders, if I
remember correctly. But that didn't solve the problem for folders in
the root of my D drive.

For those, the only thing I could get to work was *individually*
selecting each thumbnail, choosing properties, customize, change icon,
and then resetting the icon to the default. Note, this was the ICON,
not the PICTURE, even though the icon being displayed WAS the picture.
(Huh?) For special folders (documents, music, etc), I had to point the
special folders at another folder using tweak UI, then manually set the
icons to the corret ones by choosing teh correct icon from
%SystemRoot%\system32\SHELL32.dll. This also works for the picture
folders that are displaying some other image instead of image previews.

Any idea why that worked, and why the other solutions did not?

Thanks!

 

[nooneinparticular314159]

Nope. I actually tried that too. There was no thumbs.db visible on my
d: root (I did have hidden files displayed.) But if you look at what I
said above, it almost appears that the thumbnail was not what got
messed up, at least for some of the folders - it was the folder icon
itself! But I tried deleting several thumbs.db's, and it didn't work
in any of the places where I tried it. :/

Thanks for the update!

Perhaps deleting the hidden thumbs.db file would have done the trick
earlier?

--
Regards,

Ramesh Srinivasan, Microsoft MVP [Windows XP Shell/User]
Windows® XP Troubleshooting http://www.winhelponline.com


Hi. I had tried that already too. It didn't work. (Note: My max
folders remembered has been about 4000 for years, and I am running
SP2.) BUT - I did just find a solution which appears to have
worked...sorta..

First, doing a system restore to 2 days to helped a lot. The problem
seemed to start when I applied a folder setting to all folders, if I
remember correctly. But that didn't solve the problem for folders in
the root of my D drive.

For those, the only thing I could get to work was *individually*
selecting each thumbnail, choosing properties, customize, change icon,
and then resetting the icon to the default. Note, this was the ICON,
not the PICTURE, even though the icon being displayed WAS the picture.
(Huh?) For special folders (documents, music, etc), I had to point the
special folders at another folder using tweak UI, then manually set the
icons to the corret ones by choosing teh correct icon from
%SystemRoot%\system32\SHELL32.dll. This also works for the picture
folders that are displaying some other image instead of image previews.

Any idea why that worked, and why the other solutions did not?

Thanks!