With a Finder window open in Column view, when you go to the View menu item and select Show View Options there are not any "Show Icons" or "Show preview column" selections for me to check.
That is very very strange. Try opening a Finder window, have it in icon view, and the bring up Show View Options, I presume you are getting the options? Now go to View (don't close the options window!) and change to List. A different set of options should appear in the options window, and if you then change the view to Column what happens to the options window?
If you want to see thumbnails for files that don't have them you either use Column view with a preview column set to display icons, or put the folder in Icon view. The Mac OS Finder does not create thumbnail.db files, as does Windows (I believe many Linux window managers create analogous files). Instead the Finder either reads the thumb from the resource fork of the file (most--maybe all--Mac graphics programs have always had the ability to create custom icons that are a part of the file), or else it will create a thumb "on the fly" for files that don't have them if told to do so in Icon and Column views. In List view it will display a small icon if the file has one, otherwise it just uses the generic icon. Windows is incapable of reading Mac resource forks, where the custom icon is for files created on a Mac, and the Finder is incapable of reading Windows thumbnail.db files. Any file you create on your Mac with a Mac graphics program will have a custom icon, if you set the preference of the program to save the file that way. This includes Image Capture, if you use it to transfer files from your camera. Images you get from a Windows or Linux box, or download from the Internet, do not have a resource fork and so do not have a custom icon.
Francine
Francine
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