Taskbar Thumbnails Disappeared

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Taskbar Thumbnails Disappeared

SYMPTOM

The taskbar thumbnails in Aero stopped working.

Please Note: Taskbar Thumbnail Preview only works when you have enabled Aero in Windows 7, for more information, please refer to:

What is the Aero desktop experience?

https://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/What-is-the-Aero-desktop-experience

RESOLUTION

First, please apply the update in the following Knowledge Base article and see if it works:

An update is available that enables the thumbnail controls of certain applications to be displayed correctly on the taskbar in Windows 7 or in Windows Server 2008 R2

https://support.microsoft.com/kb/2259539

If the issue persists, please also try the following methods:

1. Test this issue in Clean Boot:

https://support.microsoft.com/kb/929135

2. Check the Group Policy settingsfor this issue:

How to Enable or Disable Taskbar Thumbnail Preview in Windows 7

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1) Click on start and type on Search bar gpedit.msc and press enter.

2) Now navigate to User Configuration, Administrative Templates, and Start Menu and Taskbar in left pan of Group Policy Editor.

3) Locate “Turn off Taskbar Thumbnails” in right pan of Group policy editor and double click on it.

4) Select Disable click Apply and Press Ok.

5) Now check Taskbar, it shouldn’t show Thumbnails Preview.

3. Please check the following registry keys:

Before modify the registry keys, please take a backup of the key. For more information about how to back up and restore the registry, please click the following link to view the article:

Back up the registry

https://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/Back-up-the-registry

1) Type regedit in Start menu Search box and press Enter to open the Registry Editor.

2) Go to following key:

    HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced

3) In right pane, create a new DWORD value DisablePreviewWindow and set its value to 0 to enable previews.

4) Log off or restart your system to take effect.