I have a ton of photos on the computer and having to wait for the thumbnails to cache is a pain, in fact, the only pain so far with windows 7. I'm just wondering if anybody else is having this problem where the thumbnail cache spontaneously deletes itself and then all the thumbnails have to cache again. This happens at least once a day. Is there something that I'm doing to cause this? Any help is much appreciated. Thank you

I totally agree. I even tried to save cache (stored in user/%user/appdata/microsoft/windows/explorer), created a small procedure to restore the cache once deleted (need to shutdown explorer process), works like a charm, but now i'm fed up to do this process every week. Win seven development team really need to see why this cache disapears.

wow, after all these months of wondering if I'm the only person that's experiencing this, it's nice that somebody else has the same problem. well, not nice... well, you know what I mean. What's this small procedure that you do to restore the cache? At this point I'd be thrilled to only have to rebuild the cache once a week!

I'm having the same problem with win7 x64. It seems every timeI add or remove anything to the library the whole thumbnail cache is deleted and has to be re cached which takes an age. Please can some offer a fix? Thanks.

I can't believe that Windows 7 hassuchbadbug. At least 4 times today the thumbnails have beenrandomly deleted and recreated, this includes all the Video, Picture and music thumbnails. I can't find any way to stop this happening.Even Vista did not ever have this problem!

Same to me. I have a big collections of pdf books and the thumbnail cache is self-deleting anytime. No answer for this problem yet. My Win 7 It is no beta, and I love it. It is the only problem I have with win 7.

What's up with microsoft? After surfing the web looking for a answer for this problem I find lot of people with the same problem and nobody has the answer. How many time I will wait for a fix?

Possible HDD related. If the Windows boot disk is low on space I think it will automatically deletes things like the thumbnail cache to save space.

I think 170 Mg. free is enough

I agree with ezunino......i think microsoft should fix this problem.....I really hate this bug....i never encountered this in windows vista....

I hope...that microsoft will solve this problem....as soon as possible... OS: Genuine Windows 7 Professional RTM MB: ECS GF7050VT-M5 RAM: 2GB KINGSTON CPU: Intel E5200 @ 2.5ghz HD: Seagate 250gb SATA Vcard: Nvidia Geforce 9800gt PSU: Gigabyte 550W OP DRIVE: LG DVD-RW SATA ALL DRIVERS are updated.... I really love windows 7....they sould fix this problem..

AtlastI have found a fix for this problem.It's has been over a week now and the thumbnails have not been deleted and I have not had any other related problems.This is the fix.Right click on the folderwhich maintains the Thumbnails cache, here:Users\{username}\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer" (where {username} is replaced by the name of the windows user, for exampleNeil for me)Click PropertiesClick SecurityClick AdvancedClick change permissionsListed are all the users who are allowed to use this folder (I have "System", "Administrator" and my user "Neil". For each user:Click EditUnder the"Apply to" drop down list, select:this folder and filesCheck the box under deny for: Delete subfolders and filesCheck the box under deny for: DeleteClick OKThisstopsanyusers or the system being allowed to delete the thumbnails cache files. Problem solved.Note: this does alsostop the thumbnails being deleted when using disc cleanup!

Interesting workaround, I'm surprised no one (including me) thought of it earlier. I won't be near my PC for a while so I can't see how this works outbut thanks Neil.

Thx for the help....Stormneil...it works like a charm for me...

Great work, but is not the solution. Should Win 7 manage the cache in this way? I think is a provisional solution, but no the SOLUTION of the problem. In my case, after some time I burn the files on a DVD, but with this solution I can't refresh the cache.

Does not work for me, I have a "tremendous" amount of Images/Videos and even with the method above - my thumbcache_256.db won't grow over about ~50.0MB before it seems to trim existing thumbs and generate the new ones. There has to be a way to up the size of .db, this is ridiculous. This Breaks Windows 7 as far as I'm concerned.

I am also getting this, before all my files can be successfully thumbed a folder "ThumbCacheToDelete" gets created in Users\{username}\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer with five temp files, thm27CA.tmp, thm27CB.tmp, thm27C7.tmp, thm27C8.tmp, and thm27C9.tmp, then all the thumbs start disappearing and getting recreated. I tried cleaning up just about everything I could think which might have been causing it- one thing I noticed was a lot of the folders I had imported from XP had a hidden folder.jpg and Thumbs.db in each folder so I got rid of those, but I still get the problem (this is under Windows 7 Home Premium 32 bit).

I also have this problem running Win 7 Build 7100. I've applied your solution. I hope it works. Only time will tell. Thank you.It is the responsibility and duty of everyone to help the underprivileged and unfortunate among us.

Sorry I forgot to mention I did try the fix suggested by Stormneil, and the thumbs initially did seem to stay around for longer but in a few days they all started getting recreated again.

OK, all my thumbnails had gone again after booting up this morning- please fix this problem MS!!

OK, I tried to rebuild my thumbnails again this afternoon, but the "ThumbCacheToDelete" folder got recreated and again all the thumbs have now deleted.

I suffered from this isuue eveyday my thumbnails gone suddenly I was thinking Iam only one I delete every programe and software in my pc to see which one cause it but problem remains I do nothing with windows 7 except return my thumbnails back I sent to microsoft no solution may be no one believe me

where i begin these steps please in windows 7 I want to give it a try

Hi,Allow me this (maybe stupid) question.Do you run "Disk Cleanup" now and then ?Just know that it cleans the cache if you do not unselect it before you start the cleanup.Regards Picsoe

no i never run a disk cleanup or have any clean softwares its a problem in windows 7

OK I just wanted to add my 2cts because I have had the proplem until I figured out that "Disk Cleanup" (a Windows System Accessory) was the culprit.Regards Picsoe

so what you did to solve this problem

Each time I start "Disk Cleanup", I make sure that "Thumbnails" are not selected before I start the actual cleanup.Make sure that Disk Cleanup is not taken up in the "Task Scheduler".It can also happen when you run CCleaner because it also cleans the Thumbnail-cache by default (it should be unselected).It are Just a couple of guesses.I hope that this info can be of any help to solve your problem.Regards Picsoe

I'm not sure disk cleanup can be the cause of my problem unless it is running without me knowing, my thumbs have now deleted themselves for the third time today! This time the 5 tmp files in the "ThumbCacheToDelete" folder are slightly different: thm9D3A.tmp, thm9D3B.tmp etc..

OK this afternoon in an attempt to find the cause, I tried to get as many folders as possible thumbed and got thumbcache_96.db up to 459MB at which point it didn't seem to increase even though I indexed more files; shortly after, the "ThumbCacheToDelete" folder appeared and all the db folders had been transferred into it as tmp files. The original thumbcache_96.db had been created at 16:46 and the replacement thumbcache_96.db was created at 17:34, less than an hour later so it doesn't look like any scheduled task is doing this, something is triggering it, but what!

Is there a way to report this problem to Microsoft? I have a lot of photos on my laptop and this is very annoying.

Is there a way to report this problem to Microsoft? I have a lot of photos on my laptop and this is very annoying. No senior posters/moderators have posted on this thread, it would be nice to have some of their input on this issue. I did a clean install to try and isolate the cause of this problem, only installing Microsoft Security Essentials and Live Mail as extras, yet the problem still occurred- this suggests that it is something about the files on my system, perhaps that they were imported from a legacy operating system, i.e. Windows XP/Windows 98, that causes the W7 thumb caching to malfunction?

It is rather disappointing there is no response on this- I presume because it is a known problem without a user enabled fix/and/or MS are working on the problem?

i also have this issue reported here. but Stormneil's post seems to have fixed it for me to. (i rebooted a few times since then and it's still going strong ;) ) either way though MS needs a PROPER fix for this fairly massive bug as when you got folders with a lot of pictures in each folder and every time it re-creates the thumbnail cache that burns up a lot of time and it's very annoying. p.s. luckily i found this post as i was beginning to think it was hopeless that there would never be any sort of fix as people seem to have this bug but there don't seem to be a lot of reports on it.

I also wonder if this thread is getting attention of some MS persons. I don't mind to wait or apply some "hack" but at least I hope it can get into the coming SP1.So far this is the only Win 7 bug that really ____ me off!

I am wondering if this is something to do with the Search indexing service- I seem to have these processes eating up a lot of CPU time, specifically the SearchProtocolHost.exe and SearchFilterHost.exe. I cannot think why these should still be running as I have not created many new files that should take so long to index- perhaps the whole search index is being deleted along with the thumbcache? MS really need to do something about this as it is not just an annoyance but a massive waste of energy with what must be thousands of people with this problem, and a particularly serious problem for laptop/netbook users. I found this thread on sevenforums with the exact same issue and similar fix: http://www.sevenforums.com/general-discussion/13956-whats-up-my-thumbcache-disappearing.html

I have heard from reputable sources that this "bug" isn't really a bug, but an "undocumented feature" of windows 7 which was put there to discourage the use of icon/thumbnail view and make people use detailed list view. The strange thing is that in this MS OS that I installed a few months ago the file manager doesn't seem to have this "undocumented feature";)

I have NO thumbnails for pdf on Windows 7 - 64bit (Acrobat 9.1), even if applied patch so I can see now the title page of each file separately in the right pane.

It still doesnt work i waited it for 2 week and test outit still delete my thumbnail after a weekAfter follow the step i still get my thumbnail deleted T.T

Brillant Fix. Has sped up my computer dramatically. I am just bemused that W7 would have a feature that actually SLOWS things down quite a bit.. I really miss Vista at times.. W7 is good, but it has some odd misgivings.

The fix does not actually prevent deletion of thumbnails, it merely stops all thumbnails being deleted at once. The thumbcachetodelete folder is still created, and the explorer process tries repeatedly to transfer the data from the thumbcache files to the tmp files, but it fails and keeps on creating tmp files until you remove the 'Delete' restrictions suggested by Stormneil.

Anything new come of this? I noticed Windows Live Photo Gallery allows the thumbcache_1024 file to grow, mine is over 2GB but the thumbcache_96 file is maxed at 449MB. This is one incredibly annoyance of 7 when dealing with tons of photos. Makes the system seem so slow but works great! up until you reach 449MB. Wow! That is amazing experience to have your thumbs instantly pop up for you.

Removing the delete permissions seem to be working, but thats a bad fix for something like this. Btw, not sure if its related to this, but I am also seeing the application icons being refreshed far more than I would wish (if I open the start menu after a while, I can see windows generating the icons). This thread is over 1.5 years old for such a bad problem. I hope m$ fixes this soon...

When this annoying bug will be finally fixed ? It's nearly 2 years after reporting it...

Still happens with installed SP1. Programmers know about this bug ? If not, where I can report it ? Because I see that this thread is ignored by Microsoft support here.

bumping

bump, no plans for fixing this in Windows 7 ? So how about Windows 8 ? Any plans ?!

Montain, for me the thumbcache_256.db file also seems to reach a maximum size of 449 Mb, even after try to index more files! Windows must be deleting thumbnails so that the file size doesn't go above 449Mb. I have tried all the suggested fixes, including denying the system permission to delete the explorer folder, bur Win 7 keeps deleting the thumbnails. Very annoying - I have thousands of PDF books and the thumbnails last much longer than a JPG thumbnail to be created. sometimes, I lose all my thumbnails, even though I never use disk cleanup. AFTER I lose all my thumbs, I do use disk cleanup! I cleanup the thumbs and this allows me to restore the Thumbs.db files to previous versions using the files from a restore point. A pretty desperate, partial "fix".

Exactly... and still no answer from support... I am playing for it and get nothing... funny...

If you go to Search Forums at the top of this page and type in Thumbnail Cache, a list of related topics will appear. And you will notice that our thread is the most viewed. However, Microsoft proudly states "Answered Question" with a green check mark! Hey Microsoft...Hello! I tried to find some software that could do the trick of increasing the thumbnail cache size, but so far nothing worked. I even tried to find a Windows Explorer substitute, but trust me on this, none of them is worth your time. Windows Explorer is great. It just can't be used to its full potential. Microsoft is like one of those unreachable characters from Kafka's books. And this is so frustrating.

I waited and waited and kept using xp because I need to get things done and it actually (mostly) worked for me. I even skipped Vista. I thought..whoopee, win7 is here and it'll be clear sailing. So for months now I've been suffering with thumbnails having to be recreated every time I open a folder. Not a big deal for folders with hundreds of photos of a few megs each, but as a photographer, I have folders with hundreds of tiffs (100+ megs each) in dozens of folders and I've got to sit for half a minute recreating thumbs when I open one. Really? Seriously? At least I find out it's not my computer (I was thinking of reformatting) but I did have hopes for SP1. I guess not. It even happens when I plug in an external drive. Very very disappointed. I've been told by people in the computer biz that MS actually wants us to migrate away from using thumbs for anything. Doesn't make any sense to me to use details view for a folder of photos.

I have been facing this problem too on Windows 7 pro x64 SP1. I find it really annoying that those thumnails keep refreshing after a couple of days

We need more control over options like this. I need an option to create/load thumbs.db files from within individual folders like on XP. I have thousands of images that I want to burn to discs and want to be able to load the thumbs off the disc so as not to spend 1/2 hr waiting for them to generate. Plus there should be a way to increase the thumb cache limit as I too am annoyed about the thumbs deleting. I can understand certain changes for non computer savvy people but you need OPTIONS for those who want to tailor the OS to their needs. This OS is bad for visual media. I guess they gotta make some annoyances in each iteration otherwise people will have no reason to upgrade. If this doesn't get fixed however, I will be looking at some of the ever growing free alternatives when that time comes.

We need more control over options like this. I need an option to create/load thumbs.db files from within individual folders like on XP. I have thousands of images that I want to burn to discs and want to be able to load the thumbs off the disc so as not to spend 1/2 hr waiting for them to generate. Plus there should be a way to increase the thumb cache limit as I too am annoyed about the thumbs deleting. I can understand certain changes for non computer savvy people but you need OPTIONS for those who want to tailor the OS to their needs. This OS is bad for visual media. I guess they gotta make some annoyances in each iteration otherwise people will have no reason to upgrade. If this doesn't get fixed however, I will be looking at some of the ever growing free alternatives when that time comes. You are not the only one to feel this way: Blarg the Troll May 27, 2011 at 1:35 pm # Until Microsoft figures out that upgrade means the new product must be better than the old one, they are lost. For example making emails render poorly in recent versions of outlook compared to previous ones. Offering new products that are a little better and a little worse than the old ones isnt exactly going to breed excitement. How much do you want to bet that they are going to rename Skype to something like MSN Skype give it a goofy MS logo and destroy the brand they just paid so much to acquire. I think the next Skype with thank MS for creating a huge market for them. Reply * rezid3nt_tr0ll May 27, 2011 at 5:47 pm # You hit the nail on the head. Office 2007 and 2010 didnt do anything for me that 2003 didnt(and 2003 was still far from perfect). I also was recently migrated to Windows 7 at my job. It looks prettier, but thats really it. The usability features arent all that great(not on par with Ubuntu usability anyways). They also moved a bunch of stuff around, and developed new ways of doing things that werent any better than the old ways(the old ways were dumb too, but atleast we all knew how to do them). from comments section: http://semiaccurate.com/2011/05/27/microsoft-under-siege-turnaround/

If you log in as Chuck Norris then thumbnails will not be deleted... ever... :)

You can disable thumbnails under folder options too.