Use Thumbnails in place of Windows Image Icons for JPEG, GIF

While reading a photo forum this morning I came across a person looking for a way to "see thumbnail images on my desktop instead of the generic JPG icon that Windows provides". A few of the responses on the thread were offering some workarounds like "put them in a folder on the desktop, then open it to see the thumbs".

That doesn't really answer the call & forces you to use the (awful) XP Thumbnail view!

I typically like to have my Explorer views set to "Detail" mode, which means you see the file names, size, and date information & just a tiny square icon. If I'm really browsing through images then I'm going to be inside Lightroom - in an Explorer view most often it is to do an upload, burn a CD, or web development activity where file detail is most relevant but a peek at what the image looks like would certainly be useful.

I did a bit of searching and found this freeware utility called Xentient Thumbs from Xentient Software. It's a small, quick download & does exactly what you'd expect it to:

It's pretty cool. You just install & reboot. Now all supported image formats have their icons replaced with tiny thumbnails (really tiny in the details view!) of the image in that file. Works in all folders including the desktop. Very cool.

Seems to be "safe" - i.e., no viruses & no spyware that I've seen and it doesn't seem to put any noticeable load on the system.

Verdict: Recommended!

What about RAW Files?
The Xentient Thumbs app doesn't support thumbnails for RAW image files, but the Microsoft RAW Image Thumbnailer will. Unfortunately, it will only work when you're in the "Thumbnail View" mode, so you're more or less back where we started with JPEGs!

Even worse is that the MS tool doesn't seem to support the DNG Format... strange since the spec is open & should have been easier to include than the Canon & Nikon proprietary formats.