Enlarging thumbnails

Some time ago I posted about ways to change the views of your Windows folders. I mostly use the "Details" option, because I need such information as the date a file was created, and its size. However, I switch to thumbnails for a quick scan of photographs. Only trouble is, the thumbnails are really too small. There is no native method in Windows to enlarge them, but there is a handy add-on provided free by Microsoft, called TweakUI (one of a number of handy little applications which come under the banner Microsoft Power Toys and which can perform a variety of changes to how XP works on your machine. This link is for the XP version, by the way). After you download TweakUI, you need to install it (double click on the icon). This, however, does not automatically start the program, and it manages to hide itself quite well, not putting a program icon on your desktop. I suggest go to Start menu/Programs/Microsoft Power Toys/ and right-click on TweakUI. You can then drag a copy of the icon to your desktop, from where you can launch the application. When the application is running, you will see a list of items on the LH side - 4th down is "Explorer". Click on the + sign, and then choose Thumbnails. Now you can choose how large you want them to be. Note: Windows stores thumbnail information in its memory cache, so the larger the icons, the more memory the system will require, but you can choose lower resolution to offset this. Also, if you have viewed thumbnails previously in a window, they will not automatically adopt the new size. You can force this, though. Go to the top menu in a folder window, choose Tools/Folder options/View and then check "Do not cache thumbnails". Click on "Reset all folders", and bingo.
Incidentally, you can have a full-size slideshow of all or selected photos in a folder, by right-clicking on them, and then choosing "Preview", which brings up the Windows Picture and Fax Viewer. This is another feature I use a lot, as it's faster than launching most other viewing programs.