Make Windows XP Thumbnails Larger

Windows XP brought many new and useful features to computer users. Digital photographers benefited greatly with the roll out of Windows XP nearly three years ago. One of my favorite features is the ‘thumbnail’ view in my photo folders.

Thumbnails allow you to see mini pictures instead of just file names. Windows Me had this feature albeit not as elegantly implemented as in XP. To view your photos in thumbnail view, do the following:

1. Open a folder containing your photos

2. Click View from the menus

3. Click Thumbnails

By default the thumbnails are displayed at approximately 75-90 pixels wide. Because I run my monitor at a high resolution, I wanted a larger thumbnail. After some investigating, I found out how to increase the size of the thumbnail by nearly double. This method involves editing the system registry*.

1. Click Start

2. Click Run

3. Type:  regedit

4. Click OK

5. Click the ‘+’ sign next to HKEY Local Machine

6. Click the ‘+’ sign next to Software

7. Click the ‘+’ sign next to Microsoft

8. Click the ‘+’ sign next to Windows

9. Click the ‘+’ sign next to Current Version

10. Click once on the word Explorer

11. Right-click an empty space in the right pane and select
    New > DWORD

12. Name the new value ThumbnailSize

13. Double-click this new value, and type 96

14. Click OK

15. Close the registry editor

*The registry contains critical information about yourcomputer and if you make a mistake when editing it can cause computerproblems. I suggest you

read this article at Microsoft before undertaking any registry editing.