If you work with Adobe Photoshop, even half as much as you say you do.. I’m sure by now you may have noticed that you are unable to view  thumbnails of PSD files in Windows Explorer. For some unknown reason, Adobe has decided it’s best to just remove this particular functionality for Photoshop users. How amazingly thoughtful of them.

So, if you’re like me and decide you don’t want to have to open a Photoshop, or the Adobe browser, everytime you want to view a thumbnail of a PSD file.. read on.

Here’s a quick, and easy, method of  adding the ability to view thumbnails of .psd files without opening (or heck, even installing!) Adobe Photoshop.

1. First, you need to download the necessary PSD Thumbnail Shell DLL file.
2. UnZip the psdthumbnaildll.zip file you just downloaded, and copy that file to C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Shell\ (if it doesn’t exist yet, create it).
3. Download and run this registry file. It will add the necessary changes to your registry to allow the Shell to access the new Adobe DLL.
4. Restart your system.
5. …
6. PSD THUMBNAILS!

I wake up Monday, expecting it to be like any other. I mosey around for a little while, get a few computers fixed that I have been waiting on software and parts for, pay a few bills, and get ready to start my work day. The prior Friday, I had spoken briefly with a customer about her Quickbooks acting funny when she was trying to start it. This was just the start.. little did I know I would get bombarded with Quickbook issues almost all day! I am a mobile computer technician and support many local businesses, so when something doesn’t work, I’m getting a call to get over there and fix it asap.

I make my way over to my first (and last, I thought) onsite appointment of the day. I get there and am confronted with a computer that has three different versions of Quickbooks installed on it. 2005, 2007, and 2008 are all listed in the control panel add/remove programs dialog. To begin, I try running 2008. It pops up the loading screen, waits there for about 30 seconds or so, then disappears entirely.. it was like I hadn’t even clicked it. No error, no alert, nothing.

Solution:

1. Uninstall .Net using the Microsoft .Net Cleaner Utility. You can download it here.

2. Download and install the latest .Net Redistributable Package. I installed .Net 2.0, available here.

3. Download and install the latest Quickbooks Update Patch, available here.

4. Reboot, and enjoy your working version of Quickbooks 2008!