HELP! Windows Explorers crashes with my screen shots

[jcroach]

Help!

[screaming]

Try these steps:

1) Go to Tools -> Folder Options
2) Click the View tab
3) Check Show hidden files and folders
4) Click OK.
5) Start a search by going to Start -> Search -> For Files or Folders.
6) In the Search for files or folders named enter thumbs.db.
7) In the Look in field, enter the directory with all your screenshots
8) Click Search now.
9) Delete all results.
10) Try opening the folder again.

-sab

[jcroach]

Try these steps:

1) Go to Tools -> Folder Options
2) Click the View tab
3) Check Show hidden files and folders
4) Click OK.
5) Start a search by going to Start -> Search -> For Files or Folders.
6) In the Search for files or folders named enter thumbs.db.
7) In the Look in field, enter the directory with all your screenshots
Click Search now.
9) Delete all results.
10) Try opening the folder again.

-sab

Thanks!  I'll try this tonight.  Would I need to do this everytime I want to use that folder, or just once?  Will photoshop make another tumbs.db file at any time in the future?  How do I keep this from happening again?

[screaming]

Thanks!  I'll try this tonight.  Would I need to do this everytime I want to use that folder, or just once?  Will photoshop make another tumbs.db file at any time in the future?  How do I keep this from happening again?

  I'm not exactly sure yet if this will fix your problem - I'm just guessing. 

  When you view a folder in Windows XP With the "View mode" set to "Thumbnail", Windows will automatically create a hidden file in that folder called "thumbs.db" to cache all the images, presumably to speed up viewing the thumbnails the next time you enter the folder. I'm guessing that this file is corrupt somehow, causing Windows to throw a fit.

  Windows created it, not Photoshop.  If this does fix your problem, you can turn off thumbnail caching by going to the same screen in the Folder Options dialog and check Do not cache thumbnails.  After you do this you'll probably want to click Like Current Folder above to set the option for every folder on your hard drive, and then repeat the same search outlined above for your entire hard drive(s) to get rid of all your thumbs.db caches.

  Good luck, and post back if it works!

-sab

[jcroach]

I found some info on this on the web finally.

[Brad]

As others have stated, it's a bad thumbnail.db. I've run into this problem a number times and deleting the thumbnail.db in the offending directory fixes it every time.

Brad

[daywane]

never knew what that thumbnail.db was.
thanks

[jcroach]

It seem like it's a conflict between the way Photoshop handles files and the way Windows Explorer handles thumbnails.