Adobe Photoshop CS2 Thumbnails PSD File in Windows Explorer

David Polanco
A previous resident of Del Rio Texas now living in the San Antonio. Currently President for Spyglass Hill Condominiums, and partnered with Emocium Inc.

Adobe Photoshop CS2 Thumbnails PSD File in Windows Explorer

Nov 11th, 2006 8:34:02 pm - Subscribe
Mood: good
Music: Lazard - 4 O'Clock In The Morning

So where did the Adobe Photoshop CS2 Thumbnails in Windows Explorer go? They simply disappeared! Well actually CS2 no longer supports thumbnail .PSD files in Windows anymore. But using the instuctions below, you can get them back in no time

Download this file to a temporary folder.
Shut down all Adobe programs.
Set a ’system return point’ to allow you to rollback the changes should anything go wrong (if your system supports it).
Unzip it to C:Program Files Common Files Adobe Shell. You could quite likely already have either of the DLL files. No matter.
Run ‘aiicon.dll.reg’ by double clicking it.
Run ‘psicon.dll.reg’ by double clicking it.

As Requested
How to Create a System Restore in Windows XP

Thats it! Go check your PSD files, they should be back!

Source:
Sitepoint - Fresh Thinking for Web Developers and Designers

Comments 87 | Post A Comment

anonymous - November 26th, 2006
I've hated not having previews of psd for ever! I finally searched and found this! Thank you so very very much!
WooHoo!!! I've got thumbnails!

anonymous - December 07th, 2006
Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!! Not having psd thumbnails was really cramping my work style!!!

anonymous - December 21st, 2006
id done this with tips elsewhere but it didnt work right. i downloaded some thumbnails lite program and it gave me errors. searched again, found your page and everything is back! Thanks!

anonymous - January 04th, 2007
Hmmm, it seems Adobe removed this functionality with Windows Explorer because it can potentially delete your files... Or so I have heard!

I've never had any problems with it though, but be careful and back your work up!

anonymous - February 23rd, 2007
you, my friend, are a God. Thank You.

anonymous - March 11th, 2007
These files are a godsent. I don't understand why Adobe does not provide them. Work great with CS2 and Windows XP SP2.

anonymous - March 20th, 2007
It worked very well for me, thank-you. I prefer to use explorer to look at my files and organise them rather than the adobe bridge. I've used this reg file for months now with no problems and I'm very thankfull for you providing it for free,

anonymous - March 23rd, 2007
wow! this is amazing! it worked well
thanks a lot!

anonymous - April 17th, 2007
Me too, just wanted to say thanks!

It's been bugging me for ages...

anonymous - April 18th, 2007
hmm doesnt work for me, Im running Vista does that matter?

david - April 18th, 2007
Possibly anonymous April 18th, 2007...this has only been tested on Windows XP.

anonymous - May 05th, 2007
Nice one, thumbs back again in explorer

I'm not a fan of using adobe bridge, it runs too slow, even on a good system.

anonymous - May 18th, 2007
One BIg Thanks from Macedonia!

anonymous - May 19th, 2007
whoo, finally, thanks for this!

btw. had a hard time to find that system restore point thing in windows.. perhaps you should aim a littel more

david - May 22nd, 2007
I have a created an article on how to create a system restore point just in case things go wrong with Adobe Photoshops Thumbnail PSD Files.

anonymous - May 24th, 2007
You are a my hero! Thanks so much!!!!!!!!!!! Woo Hoo!

david - May 24th, 2007
No problem, glad to help out.

anonymous - May 25th, 2007
Thank you so much -- works just fine in Vista Home Premium. :-)

david - May 25th, 2007
Awesome bud, glad to see that its good to go. on the next generation of Windows.

anonymous - June 15th, 2007
Awsome !!

anonymous - July 05th, 2007
doenst work. do i have to reboot after installing?

david - July 05th, 2007
Nope it will automatically start working, be sure your view is in 'thumbnails'.

anonymous - July 11th, 2007
where adobe photoshop autosave file or back file has been store and how to recover those

anonymous - July 12th, 2007
I could not get the Photoshop thumbnails to work, even after rebooting, _until_ I did a manual right-click and "refresh thumbnail". The other reg file generated an error about not being able to access the registry -- even in safe mode. A few things I noticed (though changing them did not make a difference): The aiicon.dll.reg file seems to reference a file named allcon.dll, but the dll file you provide is named aiicon.dll. Also, in the aiicon.dll.reg file, there seem to be spaces or hard-line breaks in some words, such as "Ico nHandler". FYI. But, my main concern was PS. Thanks for your help.

anonymous - July 18th, 2007
I can't find the "shell" file. Can anyone help????????

david - July 18th, 2007
Create a folder in your Common Files folder and call it: Adobe Shell

david - August 11th, 2007
No you must download the file from here. From there you may go off line and install...if thats what you are referring to.

anonymous - August 20th, 2007
thank you so muuuchhh!!!! god, it's wonderful. i've been trying to fight it for such a long time!!

david - August 20th, 2007
Not a problem, glad I could help.

anonymous - September 05th, 2007
You are an utter blessing. I can now easily categorize 6 years of photoshop file sooo much easier. thank you thank you thank you!!! I kiss you.

anonymous - September 09th, 2007
It worked a treat for me - I would, however, like to know the location (path) of the entries that are placed in the registry just so that they could be removed if necessary. Does anyone know?

anonymous - September 10th, 2007
cool! it worked! thanks!

tim923 - September 15th, 2007
Extract files to: C

rogram FilesCommon FilesAdobeShell

You may have to add that Shell folder like me. Double click both registration files.

tim923 - September 15th, 2007
C(colon)(backslash)Program Files(backlash)Common Files(backslash)Adobe(backslash)Shell

My backslash and colon didn't show up.

anonymous - September 16th, 2007
HAHA! It works like a charm on Windows XP Pro with Photoshop CS3.

Thank you so much, I've needed this forever. =D

- Stewart.CelerMedia

anonymous - September 28th, 2007
Works! Windows XP Pro SP2 + Adobe Photoshop CS2

anonymous - October 08th, 2007
thanks alot that was easy.. just took 1 minutes of my time to google it and problem solved. should have done this months back.

-davezak

anonymous - October 25th, 2007
For Photoshop CS3 and Illustrator CS3, you'll need to create the Shell directory, but other than that, it takes only a few minutes to do and works fantastic for the new Adobe Creative Suite.

anonymous - November 09th, 2007
Great! Worked with CS3 and Vista. I tried it beforehand and it didn't work. This time I did it all with administrator privileges, (including registry edit) and voila! Thanks!

anonymous - November 19th, 2007
Hi@ all!
Can someone pleace helpe to view the thumbnails under windows xp x64?!
Thanks for your help!

anonymous - November 22nd, 2007
I completed all the steps listed, but didn't help. Image priviews are also saved in Photoshop. No thumbnails. Can somebody help?

david - November 22nd, 2007
THis worked in Vista, be sure you follow the directions step by step...and if a directory doesnt exist when following these steps...then create one, and proceed.

anonymous - November 26th, 2007
Just installed CS3 on a WinXP sp2 ... got 'em back! Thumnails are go - David, you're a legend !

... now if I can just find a way to thumbnail MP4 videos from my Nokia N93i ...

anonymous - December 05th, 2007
Yes, Yes, Yes...I will throw my accolades on the pile also. A very heavy picture utilizer I was frustrated to death without psd icons and resorted to saving in (UGH) tiff but now I can go back to psd. Worked flawlessly...thank you very much! kdl

anonymous - December 06th, 2007
It worked for my XP as well. I did have to create a Shell folder within the Adobe folder, and some I have to right-click and refresh thumbnail, but nevertheless, YEA!

anonymous - December 13th, 2007
Thanks for this mod, worked great!

anonymous - January 02nd, 2008
THANKS BUNCHES - this is VERY useful and will be linked from my blog, frequented by digital scrapbookers

anonymous - January 07th, 2008
At the end, I suppose Adobe Disabled the icon to force everyone to used the Adobe Bridge, which it's good but quite clumsy! This DLLs were sent from Heaven.

OS: Windows Xp-Sp2, INtel Dual Core

anonymous - January 26th, 2008
Thanks! It was a pain not having previews of psd. I searched and found this! Thank you so much!
I ran the files per your instructions and got thumbnails!

anonymous - February 07th, 2008
What can I say... thanks a lot mate!

anonymous - February 08th, 2008
Good Work - its quite interesting and work very easily - save lots of time to recognising the files by names- THAAAAAAAAAANK YOUUUUUUUU

anonymous - February 24th, 2008
AWSOME!
thanks to the programmer and everyone or whoever brought this to the public.

(little side note, you do not need to have photoshop or any other adobe program installed, or to specify... adobe reader is the only INSTALLED program i have and the tumbnails STILL show for every psd image!)

anonymous - February 24th, 2008
when i double click it is request open file with ?? what do i use

thanks

anonymous - March 11th, 2008
I can follow your instructions to Adobe/Shell. I don't see Shell on my computer. I'm using Windows XP, PSCS2. Where do I find the Shell?

anonymous - March 12th, 2008
Thanks a lot!! Great job!

anonymous - March 12th, 2008
I tried this on Vista Home Premium, followed the steps completely and it didn't work. I really wanted this as it would save me a lot of time with work when I have to open so many PSDs just to find the one I'm looking for.

anonymous - March 14th, 2008
When we double-click on the files: aiicon.dll.reg and psicon.dll.reg (in the shell folder) we were then able to view the Illustrator and Photoshop CS3 thumbnails in Internet Explorer. However, there seems to be inconsistency in viewing the Illustrator thumbnails all the time. I've had to go back into the "shell" folder and re-click on the aiicon.dll.reg file in order to view again. Has anyone run into this? Do you know what is wrong?

anonymous - March 18th, 2008
I am running Vista with CS2, followed the directions, including creating the shell, didn't work for me. I tried it twice. I wish it had worked for me. Congrats to those of you who it did work for. And thanks for taking the time to post this. It's awesome for those it works for.

anonymous - March 20th, 2008
Why is it still not working for me?

I've tried Multiple sites with suggestions on how to fix it. Everyone seems to be able to get it to work. But I still can't.

Please, help me.

anonymous - April 02nd, 2008
your rock, unlike windows, thanks

anonymous - April 09th, 2008
Thanks. This works also with CS3. Follow the directions and see it working.

JP

anonymous - April 09th, 2008
Have you devised this solution for Vista x64 already? Please upload it man! This happens in vista also vith .wmf .pcx and other file formats wich have no problem in XP.
Greetings

anonymous - April 10th, 2008
to the guy up there with the .mp4 thumnail question i have the fix. this fix also will work for .mov files, and any other video format your cmoputer willplay, if it cant play em ,download k-lite codec pack,
anyway,

copy and paste this to notepad document, and save it .reg
then merge it to your reg, and ur done

enjoy

DsW____________________________________________

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT.3gpShellEx{BB2E617C-0920-11d1-9A0B-00C04FC2D6C1}]
@="{c5a40261-cd64-4ccf-84cb-c394da41d590}"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT.asfShellEx{BB2E617C-0920-11D1-9A0B-00C04FC2D6C1}]
@="{c5a40261-cd64-4ccf-84cb-c394da41d590}"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT.aviShellEx{BB2E617C-0920-11d1-9A0B-00C04FC2D6C1}]
@="{c5a40261-cd64-4ccf-84cb-c394da41d590}"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT.dmfShellEx{BB2E617C-0920-11d1-9A0B-00C04FC2D6C1}]
@="{c5a40261-cd64-4ccf-84cb-c394da41d590}"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT.divxShellEx{BB2E617C-0920-11D1-9A0B-00C04FC2D6C1}]
@="{c5a40261-cd64-4ccf-84cb-c394da41d590}"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT.flvShellEx{BB2E617C-0920-11d1-9A0B-00C04FC2D6C1}]
@="{c5a40261-cd64-4ccf-84cb-c394da41d590}"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT.mkvShellEx{BB2E617C-0920-11d1-9A0B-00C04FC2D6C1}]
@="{c5a40261-cd64-4ccf-84cb-c394da41d590}"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT.mp2ShellEx{BB2E617C-0920-11D1-9A0B-00C04FC2D6C1}]
@="{c5a40261-cd64-4ccf-84cb-c394da41d590}"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT.mpvShellEx{BB2E617C-0920-11D1-9A0B-00C04FC2D6C1}]
@="{c5a40261-cd64-4ccf-84cb-c394da41d590}"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT.mpegShellEx{BB2E617C-0920-11D1-9A0B-00C04FC2D6C1}]
@="{c5a40261-cd64-4ccf-84cb-c394da41d590}"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT.mpeShellEx{BB2E617C-0920-11D1-9A0B-00C04FC2D6C1}]
@="{c5a40261-cd64-4ccf-84cb-c394da41d590}"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT.m1vShellEx{BB2E617C-0920-11D1-9A0B-00C04FC2D6C1}]
@="{c5a40261-cd64-4ccf-84cb-c394da41d590}"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT.m2vShellEx{BB2E617C-0920-11D1-9A0B-00C04FC2D6C1}]
@="{c5a40261-cd64-4ccf-84cb-c394da41d590}"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT.mpgShellEx{BB2E617C-0920-11D1-9A0B-00C04FC2D6C1}]
@="{c5a40261-cd64-4ccf-84cb-c394da41d590}"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT.mp4ShellEx{BB2E617C-0920-11D1-9A0B-00C04FC2D6C1}]
@="{c5a40261-cd64-4ccf-84cb-c394da41d590}"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT.movShellEx{BB2E617C-0920-11D1-9A0B-00C04FC2D6C1}]
@="{c5a40261-cd64-4ccf-84cb-c394da41d590}"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT.rmShellEx{BB2E617C-0920-11d1-9A0B-00C04FC2D6C1}]
@="{c5a40261-cd64-4ccf-84cb-c394da41d590}"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT.rmvbShellEx{BB2E617C-0920-11d1-9A0B-00C04FC2D6C1}]
@="{c5a40261-cd64-4ccf-84cb-c394da41d590}"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT.vcrShellEx{BB2E617C-0920-11d1-9A0B-00C04FC2D6C1}]
@="{c5a40261-cd64-4ccf-84cb-c394da41d590}"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT.wmvShellEx{BB2E617C-0920-11D1-9A0B-00C04FC2D6C1}]
@="{c5a40261-cd64-4ccf-84cb-c394da41d590}"

________________________________

open note pad copy and paste above text and instead of saving it as .txt change the extention to .reg then click and click yes, and enjoy

anonymous - April 10th, 2008
i just wanna say thank you man psd files are working, i am using cs3 and just went into c: programfiles/commonfiles/adobe/shell and added your files and clicked on both reg entries, and walla

thanks buddy

anonymous - April 28th, 2008
Thank you!!! Thank you!!! Thank you!!! Thank you!!! Thank you!!! Thank you!!! Thank you!!! Thank you!!! Thank you!!! Thank you!!! Thank you!!! Thank you!!!

anonymous - May 02nd, 2008
Menno van 't Hoff
It works great with CS3 and XP SP2. Thank You!!

anonymous - May 05th, 2008
WOW Thanks a Million!

anonymous - May 06th, 2008
Thx, it works perfectly.

anonymous - May 09th, 2008
* A-W-E-S-O-M-E *

BEEN LOOKING FOR A FIX LIKE THIS FOR 2 YEARS!!!
THX!

anonymous - May 09th, 2008
recanting what everyone else has said... THANK YOU!!!
it sucked not having that preview...

sincerely,
acee
acee@w3rkshop.com

jgooda - May 15th, 2008
great, finally found it. Thanks

anonymous - May 16th, 2008
THANK YOU!!! THANK YOU!!!

anonymous - May 17th, 2008
THANK YOU!

For those having trouble and using non english Windows, try to edit the .reg files to the right folder. In my case, i'm using a portuguese version of windows and had to change:

"C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Shell\psicon.dll"

to

"C:\Programas\Ficheiros comuns\Adobe\Shell\psicon.dll"

to match my language folders.

Thank you very much, once again. It works like a charm...

anonymous - May 17th, 2008
Thank you so much! Especially having this up and available for the last 2 years!!
It worked first time for me on my Vista machine.

anonymous - May 26th, 2008
OMG you are my new hero! I've been tearing my hair out for about 1 year now. I have Windows Vista Home Premium/SP 1 and Photoshop CS (

.

Thank you Thank you Thank you
--Suzanne

anonymous - May 30th, 2008
snap.

anonymous - May 31st, 2008
David, I feel I must add my comment too, after looking for this solution for hours with no luck, I finally found your blog.

Absolutely fantastic! I cannot thank you enough it worked first time too.

Best wishes, Dave

anonymous - May 31st, 2008
yeah I must add my thousands thanks to the previous posts!!
Thank you very much!!!

anonymous - June 02nd, 2008
I have been unable to get this to work.

I have CS2 on an hpa430n computer (windows xp) I followed the directions exactly as stated. I did have to create the adobe shell folder. I read how some people had to right click on the thumbnail and click 'refresh thumbnail'. But when I right click on the PSD I do not have this refresh option. I tried restarting my computer but that didn't work either. Bummer.

anonymous - June 22nd, 2008
Hey, Thanks man.
CS3 + Vista = Worked like a charm

Many Thanks
Now is there any chance you could sort something out for Eps, Tif....

anonymous - June 24th, 2008
Hi, I have Windows Vista Home Preminum x64 with Adobe Photoshop CS3 Extended and I cannot get this to work. Under XP Professional however, it worked fine...

Please help!

anonymous - July 09th, 2008
Thank you! It works like a charm and was easy to do.
You might update the instructions in two ways:

1. Indicate where the backslashes in the path are, as tim93 did:
C(colon)(backslash)Program Files(backlash)Common Files(backslash)Adobe(backslash)Shell
2. Point out that some of us might have to create this (backslash)Shell directory, even if we have Photoshop CS2 installed.

Thanks again -- Bruce

anonymous - July 13th, 2008
Thanks, I've got my thumbnails back in cs2 and vista. I've no idea why I've left it so long.

BTW I had to create the shell folder and for some reason I could not extrate the files to the folder, I had to copy them there.

Thanks again.

anonymous - July 14th, 2008
I installed CS3 (on Windows XP SP2). When I tried to view Photoshop thumbnails in Explorer, I was shocked when I saw the black space where there should have been an image. Lucky for me, I found your straightforward instructions, and I've got .psd thumbnails...not to mention that you just taught me how to use System Restore. Thank you!! -- BAC

anonymous - July 16th, 2008
Just installed - works fine on Vista Business with SP1. Just one comment - it would have been nice to see what the registry files were doing before I imported them. Win9x .reg files would have let me look at them easily before taking the plunge. Cheers.

anonymous - July 17th, 2008
Can anyone help me get this to work with Vista x64? I have CS3 installed and this patch worked fine in XP Pro.

Thanks, gohan2091

anonymous - July 20th, 2008
Awesome. Works perfectly with CS3. Thanks man.

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