# Solved: Photoshop psd Thumbnails in W-XP



## Noyb (May 25, 2005)

I have 3 HP computers, all W-XP home, and loaded with Photoshop and Irfanview.
When I browse a folder in XP, in the Thumbnail mode, &#8211; I have no thumbnail displays for my psd files.
To see the psd thumbs, I have to use the Irfanview thumbnail browser.

Yesterday, I was helping friend fix his older Dell computer and noticed that his W-XP will display his Photoshop psd thumbnails in the XP folder browser. He also has Irfanview set as his default Viewer.

I didn&#8217;t have time to try to find out why his computer will display the psd thumbs &#8211; and mine won&#8217;t,
and I'm not sure I would have known where to look.
Until now - I didn't know this was possible.

Anyone know how to turn this XP thumbnail function on, for the psd file types ??


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## lister (Aug 10, 2004)

Thumbnail support for Windows was disabled in CS onwards by Adobe because some users found that their files were being damaged or lost. If you had PS 7 or below installed previously then the psicon.dll (that handled PSD thumbs preview in windows) will still be on the system, hence the ability to see PSD thumbnails.

Adobe has Bridge now to handle PSD & other files - I, personally, don't use it as it's a huge resource hog.

Irfanview can only see the Thumbnails of PSD files if the 'maximise compatibilty' option is checked in PS preferences (on by default), which saves a flattened composite of the image that most image viewers can see.

If you really want the thumbnails back (with the _possibility_ of losing some of your files), then this page has information on where to get the psicon.dll file and how to get XP to load it.

http://www.notestips.com/80256B3A007F2692/1/TAIO-68UEVH


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## Noyb (May 25, 2005)

That explains it .... He had older versions of Photoshop installed ... before updating.

All my C: partitions are basically fresh XP installs (as of CS1 or CS2 ) - so no previous files exist.
Your right - better safe that sorry.
I'll just use Irfanview's browser if needed.

Many Thanks.


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