64-bit Thumbplugs?

As we all know, Adobe crippled Windows Explorer thumbnail support for PSD's and AI's with CS2 (and CS3's no different) to try to force people to use Bridge, and Explorer never had native support for TGA thumbnails at all. I love most Adobe products, but I really hate Bridge, so I've been using third party "thumbplugs" the last few years to restore the needed functionality. I've got them for PSD, AI, TGA, and a few other formats, so I can basically see just about every type of image there is, right in Explorer.

In XP and in 32-bit Vista, these thumbplugs work just great. But unfortunately they don't work with 64-bit versions of either OS at all. They appear to install just fine (no errors reported), but then they just sit there, not actually doing anything.

Here's the situation. I recently got a new laptop with Vista Ultimate 64-bit on it. See /327/da/280009/1.html if you're interested in the details. I absolutely love the machine, and I've been very pleasantly surprised, amazed even, at just how good Vista 64 really is. As I said in the other thread, I'm firmly convinced that all the bad rap Vista gets is because of the 32-bit version. The 64-bit version is fantastic.

I'm so impressed with Vista 64, in fact, that I want to upgrade my desktop to it as soon as possible (which will be in about three weeks, after my current major work project is finished). For anyone that knows me, you know that that's really saying something, since I've ranted rather emphatically on the failings of Vista before. I've pretty much sworn I'd stick with XP for as many years as I possibly can. But all that was before I'd had any exposure to Vista 64. Now that I've been using 64, all I can say is I'm totally sold on it. Yes, I've gone over to the dark side, and I'm loving it.

But I really, really, really don't want to lose my precious thumbnails. I've scoured the Internet for 64-bit thumbplugs, and all I've found are various postings by other people who are also looking for them. I managed to find one article on how to hack your registry to make the 32-bit ones work, but it wasn't particularly well written, so I didn't understand it. Does anyone here know if there are any 64-bit thumbplugs in existence, and if so, where to get them?

Programmers reading this, I'll trade you my first born if you can create some. PSD, AI, and TGA are the most important, but Maya IFF would be nice as well if it's not too much trouble. Someone please make me happy, and help me out here. Thanks in advance.

Yeah, I miss thumbplug. I wish he would recompile for 64 bit Vista. It has been requested of him a few times, but I guess he is still a 32 bit guy.

Installing the DirectX SDK will get you .tga thumbnails (and some other formats like .hdr and .dds), but not .psd or .ai unfortunatly.

Thanks, Pygora. I did try that, but unfortunately it didn't change anything. TGA thumbnails still don't work. I've been assuming I probably did something wrong with the installation. Any suggestions?

Hmm, dunno. It just worked for me. Check to see if you have the June 2008 version and make sure Txview.dll installs, as that's the viewer component.

Looks like I just needed to reboot. TGA thumbnails are working now.

I really hope someone comes up with a fix for PSD and AI soon.

Since I don't have photoshop installed, I still have the thumbplugs functional. also, I have learned that you can still edit file types in vista (of course this requires a separate program). However, Have you considered using the most recent version of Infranview. It might work.

Does Irfanview add to Windows Explorer's display capabilities? If not, then we're talking about two different things. There are any number of third party file browsers available that will display PSD thumbnails (including Adobe Bridge). I'm not talking about that. What I want is for Explorer to show the thumbnails, so that they'll be visible from anywhere in Windows.

Definitely talking about two different things. I am a big time supporter of Irfanview and it does not change how Windows Explorer does thumbnails. Irfanview thumbnail viewer will display them correctly but does it muuuuch slower the Explorer will. I manipulate a lot of pdf files at work and actually had to script something up so that Explorer has Acrobat as the default so that pdf thumbnails will display but when a program is executed PDFXchange becomes the default and switches back when done.

Found a solution of sorts. Apparently there's a 32bit Explorer buried in Vista 64. Details here:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/895561

I made a shortcut and set "C:\Windows\SysWOW64\explorer.exe /separate" as the path and then navigate to my images. Thumbs of .psd files show up in that explorer window.

Thanks, Pygora. Great information. I'll definitely be using that.

I'm starting to get used to Bridge, though. My biggest beef with Bridge was always that it was so painfully slow. But I'm finding that Bridge CS4 is actually only marginally slower to start than Explorer is, and once it's running, the speed is pretty much equal. Memory consumption seems to be about equal as well, when both are displaying the same thumbnails. Bridge uses a bit more, of course, but the difference appears to be negligible, from what I can tell. And I do have to admit that some of Bridge's features are quite handy. It's by no means perfect, but it's really not bad.