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Recently on my Windows 10 Enterprise machine (Version 1809) my (pinned and non-pinned) taskbar thumbnails have stopped showing and only show an outline, this happens after a shutdown also. I have #6 Sticky Notes selected in the picture:

enter image description here

How can I get my thumbnails back showing?

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  • What happens if you unpin and re-pin the items?
    – harrymc
    Jan 13, 2021 at 19:53
  • Even unpinned thumbnails are like this, so if I unpin one nothing happens....
    – boardtc
    Jan 14, 2021 at 15:14
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    try to recreate the thumbnail cache.
    – harrymc
    Jan 14, 2021 at 16:11
  • Thanks harrymc! The Disk Cleanup option did not work but recreating the thumbnails cache using Command Prompt as described in the link did, they are back. Please write up an answer and I will accept
    – boardtc
    Jan 14, 2021 at 17:23
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    Done as requested.
    – harrymc
    Jan 14, 2021 at 17:36

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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The problem was a corruption of the thumbnail cache, and was fixed by method 2 below.

Method 1 : Disk Cleanup

  • Enter Disk Cleanup in the Start menu and select "Clear disk space by deleting unnecessary f‌iles"
  • Select the disk (default is C:)
  • Ensure that "Thumbnails" is checked (the rest is up to you)
  • Click OK and "Delete Files" to confirm.

Method 2 : Command Prompt

  • Run the Command Prompt as administrator

  • Stop Explorer by the command : taskkill /f /im explorer.exe

  • The following command deletes all thumbnail caches without confirmation:

      del /f /s /q /a %LocalAppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer\thumbcache_*.db

  • Restart Explorer : start explorer.exe

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