Thumbnails are Icons, not the real Pic.

[wipeout56]

In the my picture folder. I used to see a thumbnail of the original picture, now I see a icon... When I click on the icon the pic comes up, but it used to show the pic in the thumbnail.. Any Help? :eek:

[maxximilian]

Close any extra windows or programs you have running and go to the START button. Click it and then hit "RUN". In the box, type in the line below EXACTLY or copy/paste it:


regsvr32 %windir%\system\thumbvw.dll

...and hit OK.

Look to see if the thumbnails are present again. If not, try rebooting and look again.

[ 13 January 2002: Message edited by: maxximilian ]

[wipeout56]

Hey Maxximilion :) That worked great! Thank you for the help.. But one more question :confused: In the Thumbnail there is a tiny icon of Bitmap image for the bmp's or Photosweet se on the jpegs that open the pic, is there anyway to get rid of them icons? I think thats how everything got messed up in the first place was chaging what program opens that kind of file?? :eek:

[maxximilian]

If you have recently installed a graphics or graphics-related program, then that is what caused the thumbnails to dissappear. This is common in windowsME whenever a graphics program gets installed. It severs the registry connection to the thumbnails view .DLL file. The above sequence I gave you re-registers the DLL file. You may want to keep those instructions I gave you for future reference, because it is likely to happen again.

The icon you see on the thumbnail is supposed to be there. If you do not want these programs to be assosiated with those type files, let me know and I will tell you how to change the file associations. But there will always be an icon of some sort on the thumb to indicate the association.

Hope I understood what you were saying about the icons. The changed icons did not cause you to lose your thumbnails, but were an indication of changed associations. What program opened BMP and JPG images before this problem?

[wipeout56]

Well my daughter has the same computer as I have.. When she right clicks on the thumbnails in my picture folder and checks what opens her's, it says microsoft photo editor.. I tryed to change it to that and it says no file exists.. The first scanner I had came with photo suite se, and thats what is opening the jpegs at this point, but I dont have the scanner anymore. and I have photo suite III program now, but I havet taken the old one off yet.. Should I delete Photo suite se??

[maxximilian]

Before you delete any graphics programs, it always a good idea to first change the programs file associations. This is to avoid the broken associations similar to what caused the thumbnail problem. My advice is to leave the BMP images associated with MS Paint for now. Then decide what program you want to open your other images like JPG, GIF, etc. Once you know what program you want, then find one of the images in question (anyone will do) and right-click it. Then "open with", then "Choose program". You will then get a box with a list of programs. Choose the graphics program you want to be the viewer for that type of image. Select it by clicking on it once. Then put a check in the "Always use this program to open these files" box. Hit OK.

From that point on, the program you selected will be associated with all the images of that file type. If you don't know what program to choose, I suggest you use the windows default programs, which are:

JGP, GIF..........Internet Explorer
BMP....MS Paint

I find that using a bulky graphics editor like Photosuite to just view images is a waste of computing power and is slow. Especially if you want to view alot of images without actually editing them.

Once you have removed the file associations from Photosuite II, then you can uninstall it if you wish. But you don't have to get rid of it if you don't want to. I still use Photosuite for some minor editing. It has a clean interface.

OR

You could do what I do, which is download and install a Free image viewer like Irfanview. It has minor editing capabilities, but is very fast to display images. It also has an easy interface to associate itself with many different types of files. All this is pretty much your preference and how you use your image viewers and editors. As it stands now....your machine is doing what it is supposed to do. Graphics programs are notorious for stealing file associations.

So what would you like to do?

Leave things as they are......do nothing.
Change viewers and associations....follow the instructions above.
Download a viewer like Irfanview.....let me know and I will help you get it installed.

Sorry about the novel I just wrote here, but I am not sure where you want to go, so I wanted cover all the bases. ;) :D

[wipeout56]

Thanx for your help... I really dont no much about computers.. I buy a hardware like a scanner, it comes with a disk and I load it. Right now I have a micro-tech 3630 scanner. I have PhotosuiteIII, (came with it), photosuite se, (came with my last scanner that didnt work), Digital camera (photomax software), webcam, that uses logitech software.. So I have all this software loaded... The 1st hardware I added was a creative cdrw, after loading its software it froze up, and ever since then, my computer just hasnt worked right, Ive had freeze ups about every day.. It makes me think I need to start over, ( but I really dont no how to do that). But I thank you for the help with getting the thumbnail pics back..

[maxximilian]

You're welcome...

Well, most of the time, freeze problems can be caused by background programs running that aren't really needed. Since you say that you don't know much about computers, but have installed alot of stuff, I would say there is a good chance you have too many programs running in your start group. Just a guess at this point, but if you would like to try and tackle the freeze issue, we can do that. You can leave the image viewer thing as is for now since you have your thumbs back and do have a program associated as a viewer.

If you want to tackle the freezes...

Hit the Ctrl + alt + Delete keys simoultaniously. Do this only ONCE. You should get a box with a list of running tasks. Write down the list and post it here. We can then go through and see if some things can be removed to give you better performance. Also if the freezes come in some sort of pattern, like when a certain program is being used or when on the net, let us know.

Remember....we were all new to computers at one point. Don't be afraid to ask any question you wish. There are no such things as "stupid" questions. :)

Thanks for visiting Cybertech Help :)

[wipeout56]

Ok .. Thanx....
Compaq 5000us
750 mhz processer
30 GB hard drive
Windows Me

After boot up..
Explore
SaveNow
Loadqm
Rundll32
Mediadet
Cpqbootperfdb
ctnotify
Hidserv
Lvcoms
Systray
Ocrawr32
Ocraware

After signing up on the internet

Wnconnect
Wncsmserver
After signing on the internet, resources drop like 10%... Right now its at 69%..


When Im in yahoo messenger and try and turn my cam on, it freezes, but Ive uninstalled and installed yahoo messenger like 5 times.. Sometimes I get 2 yahoo icons by my clock at the same time, like I have a hidden yahoo program that didnt uninstall right.. :eek:

[maxximilian]

OK...at first glance there appears to be at least one major problem I see. SaveNow is spyware and should be removed from your system. It is a piggyback program that is tracking your movements on the internet. It likely came aboard as part of a download for some player or music-sharing program or something similar. This program alone can be responsible for freezes, crashes etc. It's junk software. When it is removed, the program that brought it aboard will likely stop working. That is the trade-off with spyware. It's a personal call to make, but I won't have ANY spyware on my system no matter what programs cease working when I remove it. Are you running Bearshare by chance?

If you would like to remove SaveNow, go to the site I am posting below and download, install and run AdAware 5.62
http://www.lsfileserv.com/downloads.html

Once Adaware runs, you will get a list of files and registry entries that it found to be spyware. Then it will remove the items for you. AGAIN...this will likely render the programs that brought the spyware, unusable.

There are a couple other items on your list that can be removed through other means. Check this site below for some explanations on those other files. Once you see which you don't need. Come on back and we can talk you through getting them out of your start group. I really think that SaveNow is what is causing most if not all of your trouble, though.
http://www.pacs-portal.co.uk/startup_pages/startup_full.htm

The only absolutely necessary items in your list is Explorer and Systray. Some of the others are for scanners and Compaq stuff.

[wipeout56]

I downloaded the Ad-Aware and did a scan of the whole computer... It came up with 49 finds.. Am I to delete all of them? or just save now stuff??
I did have BearShare downloaded, I deleted it once, but then I did a restore and and its back.. I tryed to go uninstall it from add/remove and it told me (could not open INSTALL.LOGfile.) Whats that all about? How am I suppose to get rid of it? I dont use it anymore..
Thats some good info on the startup resources. It says to get rid of new.net, so I guess I will..
Thanx again, you've been a great help..

[maxximilian]

Hi wipeout56...caught me just before I turned in for the night. ;)

My personal opinion is to let adaware remove everything it finds. You have a large number of spyware components there. I feel that any program that dumps this junk on a system isn't worth having. If they don't cause you trouble now, they will eventually. Besides, they are an invasion of privacy.

You have two of the real bad ones there. SaveNow and New.Net can really screw up a system. I am surprised you aren't having real serious trouble already.

After Adaware is finished cleaning your system, we will try and get Bearshare out of there and take another look at your other background programs. I have asked a former Compaq user to look into those Compaq background programs. I will wait and see what he says about those.

Gotta hit the sack now, but I will check in tomorrow and see how you are doing.

BTW....Do you have an anti-virus program installed? I didn't see one in your list of tasks.

[wipeout56]

Hi Max... Should I go and uninstall new.net? I do have a virus scan, (McAfee) I hope its working.. Looking at the spyware components, Theres savenow, onflow, cometcursor, aureate, doubleclick, flyswat, web3000... Lots of sexlist and sex tracker stuff... I havent deleted anything yet (make sure I dont make any mistakes).. Am I suppose to backup any of this stuff before I delete it? Or just mark them all and get rid of them? :confused:

[maxximilian]

OK....Don't delete anything yet. I see now you have web3000 installed too. First go to add/remove programs in the control panel and remove web3000. If new.net is there in the list, remove that through add/remove as well. Then run Adaware again and let it remove everything else.

Some programs are best removed before letting Adaware remove the remnants. Web3000 and New.net are two of these.

It's been ahwile, but I think Adaware will ask you at some point if you want to make a backup. If it does, you can say yes and a file will be created with the backed up info.

[Dodge]

Do you have Web3000 installed on your pc? If not then I would say delete all references to it. It is only a Ad software. You sure dont need it. If adaware does ask you if you want to create a backup file, then do it. I dont see anything that you really need to worry about. The are only cookies and can and will be back on your system.....

[wipeout56]

Ok.... I didnt have web3000 on add/remove. I removed new.net and scanned again.. It moved it from 49 to 41 spyware found, so I deleted them all.. Ok now I have bearshare, and eyeball chat and it wont let me uninstall either one.. Had something to do with doing a restore.. It said somewhere that audio-galaxy was a spyware site to... should I uninstall it also,, I dont use it very much anyways.. What music file sharing site do you recommend? :eek: :D

[maxximilian]

Hi wipeout56,

Your system should run better since you deleted all the spyware. The freezes should be reduced if not eliminated. I don't know much about Audio-Galaxy, but if you don't use it, get rid of it.

I can't advise on music sites and sharing. I don't get into that sort of thing. I do know that since Napster got wrecked, there have been a number of music-sharing programs that surfaced, but most have spyware. For a reccomendation on music sites and sharing, I suggest you post a seperate question in the "Anything Else" forum. You will likely get more responses there. I just don't know much about those things because it was never a major interest of mine.

I'm not sure why those two programs won't uninstall. If they came with their own uninstallers, try them. I will see what I can turn up on those.

All in all...you should be better off now in terms of resources and performance. If you aren't better, post back and we can look at some of those other background programs.

NOTE: I am having severe problems with my internet service. I may not be able to get back here on a regular basis. However keep posting if you have questions and somebody will hop in and help out. Thanks.

[ 18 January 2002: Message edited by: maxximilian ]

[Dodge]

For a good File sharing program use WinMX.. NO SPYWARE in it either. I have been using it for about a year now.... I like it alot better than Napster...

If you ask people this question you will have Morpheus recomended alot. DO NOT get it. It is loaded with Spyware. Not a very good program.

I agree with Max. You should be better off on System resources now. If not let us know and we'll try to help you get them on up....

[wipeout56]

Ok.. thanx for all ur help... It has gave me alot of resources.. And taught me alot.. I have a new post in internet.. I cant get a program to uninstall, and am not sure what to do to get rid of it... Its messing up my webcam and freezing my computer when im in yahoo..

Thank you all very much for the great help! :D

[maxximilian]

Glad we could be of assistance. I'll take a look at your internet post.

Just one more note on spyware. It can also come aboard through your browser. Comet cursor is KNOWN for this. If you are using Internet Explorer, you will want to go into:

Tools>
Internet Options>
Advanced>

Scroll down and make sure there is NO check in "Enable Install on Demand". This is one ways that these things can invade your system, so it is best to disable this function.

[wipeout56]

It was checked so I unchecked it... Since I cleanned my system of spyware, when I use aimster (another share file site) I download a music file and as soon as its done it shuts me down and says, timeout error. then its says, aimster will now close, if you have anymore problems restart your computer.

[maxximilian]

wipeout56,

I wish I knew more about these programs you are using. Most are alien to me....

In doing some research I found more than a few articles referring to Aimster as "buggy" and "poorly written". The good news is that is supposedly is spyware-free. You can try uninstalling and re-installing, but I really can't advise on this particular program. Sorry....