On Windows operating system when you view photos or images in windows explorer thumbnail view, thumbnails are created for each image. These thumbnails are stored in a cache file, the purpose of this file is to avoid CPU processing by recreating thumbnails when a folder has large number of files and set to thumbnail view.
Thumbnailcache Viewer is an open source application that allows you to extract thumbnail images from the thumbcache_*.db and iconcache_*.db database files found on Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8. The program is tiny with just 58 kb in size and can be opened directly after downloading.
Thumbcache Viewer supports both command line and graphical interface. Open the program and show the path to a thumbscache.db file, In Windows 7 thumbcache files can be found at the following path C:\Users\%username\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer. The window provides information about the file including Filename, file system location, data checksum, header checksum, entry hash, physical location.
If you select an item from the list a preview window will open with a preview of the file. You can use mouse scroll or + and – to zoom in and out. Arrow keys can be used to move the file in the window. To rename a file click once on the selected item from the list, an edit box will highlight, change the name and press enter.
