Thumbnail Previews in Windows Vista

[dbaldacchino]

Thanks guys! I'll post this solution in the Tips & Tricks forum with a link to the this thread.

[dbaldacchino]

I'm finding that the root of the cause in my case is not because revitpreview.dll is not registered properly. Let me explain.

I'm running Vista Enterprise 64 (this happened even under Business 64) and sometimes files seem to get "corrupt", where if you try to delete, move or rename the file in Explorer, or open the file in it's native application, it will not do it or in the case of the latter, will lock up the application. I have no idea what causes this but so far it has been only rvt, rfa and dwg files that cause it. One of the tell-tale signs that you have a problem file is that when you're in a folder that has one of these, the windows progress bar (at the address bar) moves slowly up and never stops moving really slowly. Another sign is that when you try to delete one of these files, it never stops calculating how long it's going to take and you have to force that dialog to close.

Usually the only files that do this are ones copied from another PC, such as through a USB, or transferred from another hard drive. I have no clue what causes this as I've never seen it on XP, but reports of this problem are not unheard of even with other file formats. Now I'm finding that a perfectly good copied rfa file can cause a new backup file to exhibit these symptoms (family.0001.rfa for example).

To work around the problem I'm using an application called MoveOnBoot by GiPo@Utilities, which you can download here. With this I'm able to delete the offending files on the next boot and the previews magically start working again.

[Mike Hardy-Brown]

Thanks David!!!!!

Also found unlocker which doesn't need the machine to reboot.
When I was running the batch upgrade utility, the same files that present this problem, crashed the upgrade utility. A common issues was: "solid geometry completely inside another", which I have found when upgrading RB9 files too.
Anyone else have other suggestions?
Factory?

[dbaldacchino]

Hi Mike, Unlocker doesn't work yet for Vista 64. So for now I'm stuck with MoveonBoot!

[Mike Hardy-Brown]

Hi Mike, Unlocker doesn't work yet for Vista 64. So for now I'm stuck with MoveonBoot!

and still no word from the factory........?
maybe we should wait for next gen windows?
Would be nice if we had a bulk family upgrade, that deletes problem revit files or puts them into a dump folder.

Well David maybe you can have on restarts.....mind you, have to do it so often, will make you

[dbaldacchino]

Haha I know!! We can't figure out what causes it yet, although so far only laptops have had this issue. When trying to delete these problem files, Vista keeps calculating and you have to stop it/force it to close out of the dialog.

[nweeks]

I have had previews not show and subsequently was unable to move rfa files via Windows Explorer. In fact after attempting the move, I could no longer open the rfa in Revit. I determined the problem is with the Preview Source in the Save As options. I somehow set it to 3d View 1 rather than the Active View. Even though 3d View 1 existed, it failed to create a preview.

In order to open the "corrupted" rfa, I set Windows Explorer View properties to always show icons, never thumbnails (requires explorer to restart to take affect). Once I restarted explorer, I was able to once again open the rfa with Revit, change the Preview Source to Active View, Preview created...life is good again.

I have submitted this to Autodesk. Hopefully they will fix it!

I should add, I am running Revit Architecture 2009 on Vista 64 bit.

[dbaldacchino]

Thanks for that tip and for submitting it. Next time I encounter that issue I'll give it a shot. So far it's been working ok.

[iankids]

Hi All,

This problem is driving me nuts! Since Louis and Marek sorted out the initial problem of the registering of the dll file, I have had the same sort of problems as Dave and others describe with certain files "locking up" a whole folder.

Whilst the fixes that Dave & others have suggested work, they are enormously time consuming to undertake when one is dealing with lots of folders and lots of families within the folders.

This whole problem has a huge efficiency hit on my output.

Please, Please, Please Factory Fix this ASAP

Ian

[Les Therrien]

what a pain in the arse!