zabkat support forum

the foxit reader solution works

I have pro and both pdfx viewer and foxit but I can't see any pdf first page with thumbnails view. Is there a setting somewhere?

when you have too many PDF handlers installed it's hard to say which one is responsible for what. If you don't need all that software, I recommend uninstalling everything but the one you like the most. Then things will be clearer. For best with xplorer2 see here www.zabkat.com/blog/pdf-reader-shell-integration.htm

ok I only kept pdfx, now after a reboot I still can't see the first page. I am thinking maybe I am missing the pdfx viewer shell?

try reinstalling pdf xchange viewer and leave all the defaults. Another reboot and it should work

I have uninstalled all pdf software and reinstalled pdfxchange editor plus, still no luck. What else could it be?

can you see plain text PDF previews? (DRAFT preview tab)
can you see "good" PDF previews? (NATIVE preview tab)
is the problem just with thumbnails?

I can see both, they don't look nice but I see the binary in one and the formatting in the other tab.
The thumbnails are the only thing not working.

the draft preview should show pure text, no binary (unless your PDFs are really pictures with no real text)
does your windows explorer show pdf thumbnails?

the draft preview shows hexadecimals and text together, the windows explorer preview is blank for pdf but works for all other files. Also preview in xplorer works fine for other files.

troubleshooting these matters takes a good knowledge of the registry. You must start from the key
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.PDF\shellex\{e357fccd-a995-4576-b01f-234630154e96}
if it doesn't exist even, there's your problem
if it does, you must find the default value of it which is another funny string like {7c67eb93-8eff-4e48-889f-45ba299bc46f}
(it will be different for everybody)
then you must look up the object that deals with thumbnails under key
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{7c67eb93-8eff-4e48-889f-45ba299bc46f}
in there you will find the DLL that handles it under InProcServer32 key.
for more information see here: http://www.zabkat.com/blog/25May08.htm

ps. you could also start your investigations from HKCR\.PDF\shellex\{BB2E617C-0920-11D1-9A0B-00C04FC2D6C1}

thanks nikos, ok this is a bit more involved. Let's start by saying that I have two entries in HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.PDF\shellex that have that kind of format but the values of the registry are different from the value in the label, so which of the two should I look for?

If I just delete these entries and reinstall pdfx would it be a quicker way to fix this?

thanks again!

you can try reinstalling pdf xchange viewer, for sure that's easier... and it might even work

uninstalled and reinstalled leaving everything default, nothing changes. I also removed the reg entries, now I still have two reg entries like I described earlier. Why is this so complicated?

look, as this affects windows explorer too, and it is no fault of xplorer2, try asking the support email/forum of PDF xchange viewer "Why don't I get PDF thumbnails in windows explorer?" and see what you get out of them. If you find a solution please let us know over here too