W8 keeps deleting thumbnail cache (changed folder permission)

[LoliHunter]

Well I just gave this one more try. Thumbnails still showed up in disk cleanup after applying the new security settings and rebooting, but even after generating my cache to about 160 mb/s they did not delete on reboot. But now here is where it starts to act funny.

I would browse folders after the restart, and it was constantly generating the thumbnails but not saving them. It acted like the cache was not present even though I could see the cache in the explorer folder was still there. I ended up removing the permissions and resetting to default, and right away without a restart thumbnails starting working correctly again. However windows IMMEDIATELY deleted the thumbs database files located the Explorer folder.

Another thing I have noticed is windows does not actually delete these files at all. Creation date does not change - just the modification date. Talk about frustrating.

I also have Windows 8.1 x64. No WMC though.

 

[nuzran]

is there anyone that still have this problem?

 

[dyablor]

Yep.

Yep. And still no fix.

 

[jakobkraft]

I found this on Google search:

Right click on the folder which maintains the Thumbnails cache, here:

Users\{username}\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer" (where {username} is replaced by the name of the windows user, for example Neil for me)
Click Properties
Click Security
Click Advanced
Click change permissions
Listed are all the users who are allowed to use this folder (I have "System", "Administrator" and my user "Neil". For each user:
Click Edit
Under the "Apply to" drop down list, select: this folder and files
Check the box under deny for: Delete subfolders and files
Check the box under deny for: Delete
Click OK

This stops any users or the system being allowed to delete the thumbnails cache files. Problem solved.

Note: this does also stop the thumbnails being deleted when using disc cleanup!

I just applied it & will wait to see if it works.

Edit- Thumbnail cache disappeard from Disk Cleanup.
The size of the cache is 62.5 MBs right now.
I am going to reboot & check it again.
I'll be back.

I'm back.
After restarting, the cache was the same size as before.

It seems to work.

Edit- I just noticed similar options are already posted.
I will add a screenshot of permissions to see if they are as others' settings.

A picture:

View attachment 34133

Has this continued to work for you? I feel like I've tried everything in my Windows 8.1 64 but system and nothing works!
Please let me know, it'll give me hope!

 

[David Bailey]

yep.
& my thumbnails work good.
Hope this helps.

Thumbnails are absent from Disk Cleanup too.

 

[jakobkraft]

yep.
& my thumbnails work good.
Hope this helps.

Thumbnails are absent from Disk Cleanup too.

View attachment 40297

Okay, then -- I will try one last time to get this right!

 

[David Bailey]

I never chose to delete thumbnail cache.
I wanted to keep it so my thumbnails would be quicker to appear.

Hope you get it sorted out.

 

[jakobkraft]

Okay, I just did everything you said and am about to start enabling thumbnail view on all my video folders, see how many reboots it will be before they disappear. Keeping my fingers crossed!!

My one question -- you said that Thumbnail cache disappeared from Disk Cleanup. Did you mean that it was no longer at the top of the list? Or it wasn't checked anymore?

Because I still have Thumbnail Cache in my Disk Cleanup but it shows towards the bottom See attached pic showing both top and bottom view of Disk Cleanup.

So my question is did Thumbnail Cache disappear COMPLETELY from your Disk Cleanup? Because if yes, then that means I did something wrong

 

[David Bailey]

Gone completely from mine.

 

[Det87]

Might also be worth disabling file creation in "%LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer\ThumbCacheToDelete", to prevent it from filling up with useless 0 byte .tmp files.

The permission "create folders" is combined with "append data", so the creation of "ThumbCacheToDelete" itself can not be disabled or you won't get any new thumbnails for your files.

 

[jakobkraft]

Might also be worth disabling file creation in "%LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer\ThumbCacheToDelete", to prevent it from filling up with useless 0 byte .tmp files.

The permission "create folders" is combined with "append data", so the creation of "ThumbCacheToDelete" itself can not be disabled or you won't get any new thumbnails for your files.

It didn't work anyway - I actually did manage to remove the Thumbnail listing from Disk Cleanup, but it still rebuilt my thumbnail cache from scratch on startup. I've given up for now, too stressful.

 

[Det87]

Did you disable the permissions for all users (including SYSTEM)?

Thinking about it, disabling file creation in "ThumbCacheToDelete" alone should cut it, as the previous caches are then prevented from moving. Might make Disk Cleanup stall, though.

 

[jakobkraft]

Did you disable the permissions for all users (including SYSTEM)?

Thinking about it, disabling file creation in "ThumbCacheToDelete" alone should cut it, as the previous caches are then prevented from moving. Might make Disk Cleanup stall, though.

Wouldn't be a problem for me, as I never use Diskcleanup. I just wanted to confirm that my Thumbnail option was gone from Disk Cleanup because David Bailey was able to make this work and he had Thumbnails completely gone from his Disk Cleanup list.

Were you also able to stop thumbnails from deleting in Windows Explorer? So far, David Bailey is the only one I've come across to be able to stop his thumbnail cache from regularly deleting itself in Windows 8.

 

[jakobkraft]

Did you disable the permissions for all users (including SYSTEM)?

I did, but like many others that have done so, it did not work.

 

[Det87]

Twice the post is twice the power.

Were you also able to stop thumbnails from deleting in Windows Explorer?

I thought that's what we were talking about?

But no. It seems I can preserve the caches, but they aren't actually read, so after the reboot Windows seemingly starts storing the "new" thumbnails in RAM. Which is pretty terrible.

 

[3dot]

Bumping thread back to life. Still no solution? i.e shutdown ignores old caches.

edit: Just as I gave up on finding solutions online, I decided to follow through with the suggestion to disable task maintenance. I disabled both idle and regular maintenance in the task scheduler, and bam, the thumbnails get insta recall when I shurtdown, then start the PC and open that folder. I don't know how bad the consequences of doing this are though.

double edit: aaand, nevermind. It is sporadic. After third shutdown, no more insta recall...

 

[Det87]

It doesn't just ignore them, it actually removes them.

 

[3dot]

Well I guess I won't be shutting my laptop down anytime soon then.

 

[Det87]

In the end, I solved this the Linux way by just creating a script to run on startup:

@echo off[SIZE=2]
[/SIZE]
[SIZE=2]:: Go to C:\Users\<Name>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\[/SIZE]
[SIZE=2]cd %LocalAppData%\Microsoft\Windows\[/SIZE][SIZE=2]
[/SIZE]
[SIZE=2]:: Kill explorer.exe[/SIZE]
[SIZE=2]taskkill /im explorer.exe /f[/SIZE]

[SIZE=2]:: Copy the thumbnails from "Explorer - Copy"[/SIZE]
[SIZE=2]xcopy "Explorer - Copy\thumbcache_*.*" "Explorer\" /q/y[/SIZE][SIZE=2]
[/SIZE]
[SIZE=2]:: Restart explorer.exe with "start" to auto-close CMD window[/SIZE]
[SIZE=2]start explorer.exe[/SIZE]

v1.1 - Updated 6th July 2014
• No "Access is denied" messages
• Auto-close CMD window

Name it <something>.bat and put it in, e.g.: "AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup\"

What it does is simply get the thumbnails from the Explorer - Copy folder where they should be manually copied before shutting down.

 

[arcadayn]

Has anyone else tried Det87's fix? Just tried, will let y'all know what I find out.