Q: When I opened my Pictures folder today in Windows 7, I could no longer see thumbnails of my photos. Instead, each thumbnail showed a generic illustration of an ocean view. What on earth did I do, and how do I see thumbnails of my actual photos?

A: It sounds like you may have used one of Windows 7’s many performance-enhancing tweaks. In this case, Windows 7 sped things up by neglecting to resize any of your photos as thumbnails. Instead, Windows 7 simply slips in the generic ocean scene (shown above) as a substitute.

Luckily, you can keep the other performance tweaks Windows 7 has made, but bring back your photo thumbnails by following these steps:

1. Click the Start button and choose Control Panel.
2. Choose the “System and Security” category.
3. Click on the System icon.
4. From the System window’s left pane, click on the Advanced System Settings link. (The Systems Properties window opens to the Advanced tab.)
5. On the Advanced Tab’s “Performance” section, click on the Settings button. (It’s the top-most Settings button.)
6. In the Visual Effects tab, click to put a checkmark in the box called, “Show thumbnails instead of icons.”
7. Click the OK button.

Your thumbnails should return to normal.

Update: Jason Cole points out that you can also toggle between displaying icons and thumbnails by following these steps:

1. Open your Photos folder (or any other folder, for that matter).
2. Click the Organize button, and choose Folder and Search Options from the drop-down menu.
3. Click the View tab, and click “Always show icons, never thumbnails.”
4. Click the OK button to save your changes.

This post explains how to fix the same photo thumbnails problem in Windows Vista.