PowerToys includes a PDF thumbnail generator as well as the preview handler module (DLL). There is no 32-bit version of Microsoft PowerToys only the 64-bit version has been released. You can use Microsoft PowerToys to enable PDF thumbnails and preview generation (for the preview pane) even if you don’t have a proprietary PDF viewer software installed. PowerToys requires Windows 11 or Windows 10 v1903 (18362) or newer to work. Microsoft PowerToys is a set of utilities for power users to tune and streamline their Windows 10 experience for greater productivity. If thumbnail and preview functionality is still missing for PDF file types, proceed to the next step. Uncheck “Always show icons, never thumbnails”.Enable “Show preview handlers in preview pane”.

PDF Thumbnail and Preview Not Showing in Explorer Preliminary step – Enable thumbnails and preview handlers in Explorer

Fix: No PDF Thumbnails with Edge as the default viewer.

Fix PDF previews using Microsoft Edge Chromium.

Outlook 32-bit Registry Fix (for PowerToys users).

Fix PDF previews using Microsoft PowerToys.

Foxit reader pdf icons do not show