Enable or Disable Thumbnail Preview for PDF Files
Adobe Acrobat Reader includes a thumbnail extractor shell extension which generates thumbnail preview for PDF files in Explorer. If you want to disable PDF thumbnail generation for performance or for other reasons, use the steps listed below:
(This assumes that you have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed in your system.)
Disable Thumbnail Preview for .PDF files
Note: For an automated solution using REG files, see section Registry Fix in this article.
1. Launch Regedit.exe and navigate to the following branch:
2. Backup the branch using the Export option under File menu.
3. Right-click {BB2E617C-0920-11d1-9A0B-00C04FC2D6C1} and choose Delete. Click Yes when prompted for confirmation.
4. Exit the Registry Editor.
5. Logoff and login back for the change to take effect.
If you’re using Windows Vista, the Preview pane can still generate preview for PDF files, despite the above setting.
Registry Fix
1. Download pdf-thumb.zip and save to Desktop.
2. Extract the files to a folder.
3. Double-click pdf-thumb-disable.reg to run it.
4. Logoff and login back for the change to take effect.
Undo information: To reverse the changes, run the file pdf-thumb-enable.reg.
Copyright © 2008 Ramesh Srinivasan. All rights reserved.
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Comment by michael on 4 August 2008:
it did not fix the issue. i’m very sory but it does not work for vista. i edit the registry both manually and with your .reg files, but it did not act on the explorer thumbnails although i clean the thumbnail cache. i think there is another secret key in registry that acts directly to all of the thumbnails (to all file types).
Comment by Michael2 on 8 October 2008:
Thanks, worked nicely!