🚀 go-pugleaf

Since you people are no help, I will log my own attempts to resolve this issue, in case I need to do it again in the future.

I use Foxit Reader for PDF viewing, because it's much better. I installed Adobe Reader 8.1.1 to get my PDF thumbnails in Windows Explorer back. I also have Photoshop CS4 installed. Here are my steps so far:

1) Ensure that my folders are in "Large Icons" view, make sure "Always show icons..." option is disabled.

2) Uninstall Foxit Reader & Adobe Reader.

3) Remove Adobe Reader & PDF file type entries from registry.

4) Ran Unassoc to remove the PDF file type from Windows.

5) Ran Disk Cleanup to remove Thumbnail files.

6) Installed Adobe Reader 8.1.2.

* At this point, I effectively had a clean install of Adobe Reader. However, my PDF file thumbnails still show up as the stupid Adobe icon.

7) Ran xplorer2 32-bit in Thumbnail view. My PDF thumbnails show up both in the file explorer view and in the preview pane (Draft and Native).

8) Ran Adobe Bridge CS4. PDF thumbnails show up there, too. So, at least I now have 2 effective workarounds to Adobe Reader's ridiculous shortcoming.

9) Ran the 32-bit Windows Explorer. No problem with PDF thumbnails. Hot damn!

10) Closed 32-bit Windows Explorer. Opened regular Windows Explorer and browsed to the same directory. PDF thumbnails still working.

11) Browsed to another folder with Windows Explorer. No PDF thumbnails.

12) Reinstalled Foxit Reader 3.0 so I don't have to suffer through actually using Adobe Reader. Made sure not to set it as the default PDF reader.

13) Verified thumbnails in 32-bit Explorer still work. They do. Bitchin.

There you have it. 3 separate workarounds. Maybe Adobe will fix this problem in their next release. Maybe they'll also create a PDF reader that isn't 100mb. Don't hold your breath. Thank me and follow my instructions instead.