Windows 10: .PDF Preview Pane not working in Windows 10 - Potential Solution

I have been reading many posts about the Windows Explorer (Windows 10) not showing previews of .PDF documents. My WE stopped showing .PDFs recently and I needed a solution but all that is typically offered is associating the .PDF files with Acrobat using the "Open With" function after right clicking a file. Also frequently offered is the "Enable PDF thumbnail previews in Windows Explorer" checkbox in the Acrobat "Edit", "Preferences", "General" settings dialog box. Neither worked for me.


I also tried to repair the Adobe Acrobat installation by uninstalling and re-installing Adobe Acrobat. This did not fix the issue.


Going to the administrator account on my laptop did show the .PDF previews so I decided to check my typical user account settings. I normally use a "User" and not the "Administrator" account to provide a small layer of safety to my computing.


Here is how I fixed the issue:


I went to the C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Acrobat Reader DC\Reader\AcroRd32.exe file in Windows Explorer and right clicked the file. I went to the "Compatibility" Tab and clicked on the "Run compatibility troubleshooter" button. This process set the compatibility mode to "Windows 8". I also clicked on the "Security" tab and edited my "User" account to have "Full Control" by clicking the "Edit" button while my User account was highlighted.


.PDF files started showing up in my Windows Explorer preview window immediately.


Hope this is helpful.


Matt

:)

 

Video in the preview pane

Aileen,

Thank you so much for your reply.

What I really need to know is how get the video to play in the preview pane. Prior to Windows 10, this worked wonderfully and was an asset. Now, it requires making changes to the Windows registry - not recommended due to the enormous amount of issues with
Windows 10.

Any other suggestions?

 

Preview pane doesn't work in Windows 10

 

No PDF viewer in File explorer preview pane

Hi Steve,

Conflicts with the program settings is one of the possible reasons why you are unable to view the PDF preview in the File Explorer Preview Pane. We suggest that you try the troubleshooting steps in this

thread, and go to the post that was provided by Michalis_Georgiou
on October 24, 2017 in the 2nd page, and check if you will still encounter the same issue.

Should you need further assistance, don't hesitate to get back to us.