Home Tech Support: What happen to my picture thumbnails?

You know you have to do it.  Your parents, your sister, grandpop... they all ask for help with their computers when you are around.  So here's a quick one I got during my family vacation last week - The thumbnail view of a folder my father kept pictures in wasn't showing the photos anymore.

Somehow the setting for "Always show icons, never thumbnails" was selected in the Folder Options settings, under the View tab. 

I'm guessing an application change it, though I wouldn't be totally surprised to find out he was mucking around in there.

Another reason thumbnails might not show up is if the hard drive is mostly full.  Windows will stop generating thumbnails to save space.  That was the first thing I checked, but wasn't the issue in this case.