How can I prevent Windows XP from maintaining a thumbnail cache?

A. XP keeps a thumbnail cache of images on your machine. However, if these images change frequently, the OS might not always update the cache file, and thus display the wrong thumbnail. For the same reason, you might simply want to prevent the OS from creating the cache file (i.e., thumbs.db) altogether. To stop the OS from maintaining the cache file, perform the following steps:

1. Start a registry editor (e.g., regedit.exe).
2. Navigate to the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced registry subkey.
3. Double-click the DisableThumbnailCache value or create this value of type DWORD if it doesn't exist.
4. Set the value to 1, then click OK.
5. Close the registry editor.
6. Log off and log on for the change to take effect.