How to Enable or Disable Thumbnail Previews Quickly Using Right-Click Menu in Windows Vista and Windows 7

© Ramesh Srinivasan | Windows 7, Windows Vista | 10th December 2009

If you had disabled thumbnail previews in Windows Explorer for performance, but want to have a means of enabling or disabling thumbnail previews in a jiffy, here is a solution for you. To enable or disable thumbnail previews in Windows Vista and Windows 7, you normally click on the Organize button in the folder view, choose Folder and Search Options, select the View tab and then select or deselect the Always show icons, never thumbnails.

Editor’s note: Of course, one can change the folder view options to Tiles or Details, and apply the setting to other folders. This article is for users who prefer the "icons" view, but want to enable or disable thumbnails quickly without getting into Folder Options.

Here is a REG file and a VBScript that adds a Enable/Disable Thumbnails option to the right-click menu. This script works in Windows Vista and Windows 7.

1. Download togglethumbs.zip and save it to the Desktop.

2. Unzip the archive and extract the contents to a folder.

3. Move the file togglethumbs.vbs to the C:\Windows directory.

4. Double-click togglethumbs.reg to merge the contents to the registry.

The Enable/Disable Thumbnails option is now added to the context menu, which will be seen when you right-click on the Desktop and when right-clicking on an empty area in a folder.

And here is a small screencast:

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8 Comments

  1. Anon
    said this on Thursday, January 26th 2012 8:20 pm

    Okay. Adding it to HKCR\LibraryFolder\Background\Shell makes it appear in Libraries.

  2. Anon
    said this on Thursday, January 26th 2012 8:15 pm

    How to make this context menu option appear in the Pictures Library’s context menu?

  3. Paul
    said this on Saturday, January 7th 2012 1:18 am

    The enable/disable option is open on the desktop but not in any other folder. What did I do wrong?

    Thanks

  4. Chris the designer
    said this on Wednesday, July 28th 2010 3:11 pm

    excellent. What a rediculous oversight by windows, many thanks for this…

  5. Nid
    said this on Tuesday, March 16th 2010 9:08 pm

    Thank you so much for this. Days of searching came to an end when someone on a forum pointed me to this.

  6. anon
    said this on Tuesday, March 16th 2010 6:38 pm

    This is a nice trick but can you please make it appear in the context menus of libraries (when browing pictures or videos libraries)?

  7. sami
    said this on Sunday, January 17th 2010 8:46 pm

    Thanks, now i love se7en

    maybe, you can do this too.

    http://www.experts-exchange.com/articles/Programming/System/Windows__Programming/Add-a-Custom-Command-Button-to-the-Windows-7-Explorer-Toolbar.html

  8. emarell
    said this on Thursday, December 10th 2009 8:51 pm

    Thanks, this is excellent. Perfect instructions too – as usual.

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