Media on local drive will automatically be displayed as thumbnails in Windows 7. However sometimes, when you map a drive to your computer which contains all of my media. The media may not be displayed as thumbnails unless you select an item, then leave the folder and then return to it. How to make the media files in the Network to automatically display as thumbnails?
Actually, This is a normal behavior in Windows. It takes some time to display the thumbnails on a network drive especially when the folder and file size is big.
However, if this is not the situation, you can reload the thumbnail cache using Disk Cleanup by the steps below to check the result:
- Go to Start, type Disk Cleanup in to the Search box and then press Enter.
- Check "Thumbnails" and then click OK.
- Click "Delete Files" button.
If the above method did not work, then you have to read further!
A more accurate answer answer is - If you use a mapped drive letter on a remote server F:\folder then you don't get thumbnails for some media types, for me I get JPG thumbs but not PNG thumbs. If you use the UNC pathname \\server\share\folder then you do get the thumbnails.
Things to check in this order:-
- Make sure thumbnail rendering is not disabled in the explorer options. On Explorer Organize -> File -> search options -> View (tab) uncheck Always show icons never thumbnails option And try UNC pathname \\server\share\folder
- Make sure the file associations with graphics files are set to something like Windows Photo Viewer: Right click graphics file Open with -> Choose default program. Expand Programs + till you see Windows Photo Viewer select it and check Always use the selected program to open this kind of file option
- Try flushing the icon cache using disk cleanup options
