Want Larger Thumbnails in Windows XP?

natalie_ca

TCS Member
Thread starter
Top Cat
Joined
Jul 2, 2006
Messages
21,136
Purraise
223
Location
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
If you are like me and find yourself squinting to see the images in folders when in "Thumbnail View", download this program.


http://windowsxp.mvps.org/tweakui.htm


Double click to install.
Once installed open the program from Start/Programs
On the left side click the + sign next to "Explorer"
Click "Thumbnails"
Choose a number up to 256

Move the slider to the left to about the middle or even more to the left. The reason for doing that is because you are increasing the size of the thumbnails which means you are also increasing the number of pixels for those thumbnail images, thus increasing the file size of the thumbnail images too. Moving the slider to the left reduces the quality of the thumbnail images being viewed which compensates for the larger thumbnail size.

Click "Apply" and then "OK" and you are done.

Any folder you open now will have the thumbnails set to the size you specified.

I found 256 to be too big so I settled on 150. It's much better than the standard 96 pixels especially on a high resolution monitor.
 

madaboutrags

TCS Member
Young Cat
Joined
Sep 19, 2007
Messages
88
Purraise
1
Location
Boondocks, Maine
Or... there's a couple other ways of doing it although they won't only resize the thumbnail...
At the bottom right hand corner of the screen, click where it says 100% and it will enlarge the entire page... even the text for those who have a hard time seeing it.
Not always but alot of times you can also hold the ctrl key while scrolling with the mouse to enlarge or shrink the page you are viewing
 
  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #3

natalie_ca

TCS Member
Thread starter
Top Cat
Joined
Jul 2, 2006
Messages
21,136
Purraise
223
Location
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
But that doesn't work for viewing Folders in thumbnail view.

Using the Tweakui allows you set it and forget it so that whenever you open a file folder and want to see your images as thumbnails, the thumbnails will be the size you had previously indicated.
 

madaboutrags

TCS Member
Young Cat
Joined
Sep 19, 2007
Messages
88
Purraise
1
Location
Boondocks, Maine
OH yes... I love filmstrip view when I'm viewing folders like "my pictures" I think what she's referring to though is if you're like uploading a picture... and you click browse, the little tiny thumbnails you get then. I like my trick because if I'm like viewing webpages and want to see a picture better I just scroll it bigger and put it back. Don't have to click on it or wait for it too load... it makes the whole page bigger though, so I like to scroll it small again when I'm done. Makes reading some of the fine print a little easier to read too.
 

lunasmom

TCS Member
Top Cat
Joined
Sep 7, 2005
Messages
8,801
Purraise
12
Location
Jersey Shore
Careful using it in a business setting though. At the last place I worked at a user downloaded the software (as well as a bunch of other free ones from Microsoft) and he used certain softwares specialized for his job.

after 2 months he had so many conflicts on his computer I had to reformat it
 

madaboutrags

TCS Member
Young Cat
Joined
Sep 19, 2007
Messages
88
Purraise
1
Location
Boondocks, Maine
Careful using it in a business setting though. At the last place I worked at a user downloaded the software (as well as a bunch of other free ones from Microsoft) and he used certain softwares specialized for his job.

after 2 months he had so many conflicts on his computer I had to reformat it
One more reason why I like my trick... usually if there's a way around a download, I'll make use of it. But natalie_ca is right... it doesn't work when uploading files and all that stuff. So if someone has a hard time seeing the thumbnails in those windows it could be worth looking into.

IYO what is the underlying (main) cause of that? Do you work with computers? It sounds like you might... We do too and we see a lot of what you described. Most of the time it seems like "whoever" downloaded a program but their computer didn't meet the system requirements. Or they were what we call a "download junkie" LOL Some people just download everything they see and end up with all kinds of things going on. I think in that case it's a combination off too many programs opening on startup, spyware from bundled software... too much running in the background... etc.

A couple things we "preach" to our clients is that 1 Everyone definately needs to be careful when downloading any programs... Paying close attention to the system requirments and making sure your comuter meets them when reading about the download. 2 Read the fine print before you accept the agreement... Even if you just scroll through looking to see if it says it comes with all these other programs (smiley central for example) you might want to think twice about it. 3 Be careful with spyware/adaware removal programs... sometimes they'll delete active x controls and other seemingly little things that your computer actually needs. Number three is a very good source of error messages.
 
Top