SageThumbs 2k Files

What's changed

Added

• Optional format badge on thumbnails. Turn it on and every thumbnail gets a small label in its corner saying what the file actually is - PSD, JXL, AVIF, JP2 - so you can tell formats apart in a folder where the pictures look alike. Off by default, in Settings -> General. Switching it on or off clears the thumbnail cache for you, because Windows stores the picture we drew and would otherwise keep showing the old one. (in-app suggestion)

• A portable version, no installer. Extract the zip and run it. Nothing is installed, no administrator rights are needed, and your settings live in SageThumbs2K.ini next to the exe rather than in the registry - delete that file and it goes back to storing them the normal way. You get the app and the command line tool, so Settings, Convert and Resize, quick preview, screenshots, OCR, the colour picker and the folder tools all work. It does not give you Explorer thumbnails or the right-click menu: Windows only loads a shell extension whose COM class is registered, so no zip can provide those. Install the normal build if you want them. The screenshot tool also runs only while the app is open, since a portable copy can be moved or unplugged at any time. (issue [#13])

• A "Check for problems" button in Settings, under Advanced. SageThumbs has had a thorough self-check for a while, but only from a command prompt, so in practice nobody ever saw it. It now opens in a window you can read and copy, and it tells you in plain words what is wrong and how to fix it, whether that is a Windows setting, our registration, or the file itself.

• st2k doctor now catches four more reasons thumbnails go missing, all of them things that look like the app is broken when it isn't. It spots when Windows' "Adjust for best performance" setting is on, which switches thumbnails off and quietly turns them back off every time you fix it. It tells you when a file lives in OneDrive and hasn't been downloaded yet, so there is nothing on your PC to make a picture from. It warns if an old pre-2017 SageThumbs is still installed, because running its uninstaller can strip the registrations this one needs. And it reminds you that a folder set to Details, List or Small icons never shows thumbnails at all, whatever software you have. Each one comes with the fix.

• Setup can now restart File Explorer for you at the end, as a tick box on the last page. Installing a thumbnail handler doesn't clear the pictures Windows already remembered, so files you had browsed before could keep showing plain icons and make a perfectly good install look like it did nothing. Ticking the box clears that and brings Explorer straight back. It closes any open Explorer windows, so it is a choice rather than something setup does behind your back. Wherever SageThumbs restarts Explorer, it now waits and checks it actually came back, and starts it again itself if it didn't, so you can never be left looking at an empty desktop.

• "Restart hotkey service" now sits on the Screenshots page, next to the hotkey it belongs to, with a green or red badge saying whether the helper is actually running. It used to be buried under Advanced, which is not where you look when your hotkey has stopped working.

• The screenshot hotkey now repairs itself if something deletes its startup entry. Some antivirus tools remove it, because a program adding itself to Windows startup looks like something malware does, and until now that left the hotkey quietly dead at your next sign-in. Opening Settings puts it back.

Changed

• The PDF page-margin option moved from General to the Ebook/comic tab, where the other document settings already live.

• The reply field on the feedback form is an email address now. It used to say "email or other contact" and accept anything, so people typed their actual message into it and we had no way to write back. It is still optional - leave it empty and your feedback is sent anyway - but if you do fill it in, it has to be an address that could receive a reply.

Verified installer

• File: SageThumbs2K-Setup-1.8.0.exe
• Size: 13459062 bytes

• SHA-256: 54c33343c32904754efe9622377f44cf3db75e5642eab83698647d8f82d65b80

• ARM64 installer: SageThumbs2K-Setup-1.8.0-arm64.exe

• ARM64 SHA-256: d34b3a5fda0acefe3cc46e4b0d874efbc8c1d2cba96092476ca9c990a901767b

Portable (no installer)

Extract and run. Nothing is installed, nothing goes in the registry, no admin needed. Settings live in SageThumbs2K.ini next to the exe.

It gives you the app and the command line tool: settings, convert and resize, quick preview, screenshots, OCR, the colour picker and the folder tools. It does not give you Explorer thumbnails or the right-click menu, because Windows only loads a shell extension whose COM class is registered. Install the normal build for those.

• ** x64 portable:** SageThumbs2K-Portable-1.8.0.zip

• ** x64 portable SHA-256:** 8629d4cd141d02baab4b12155f60a710726d493484a2b9251085ab6776b7ea51

• ** arm64 portable:** SageThumbs2K-Portable-1.8.0-arm64.zip

• ** arm64 portable SHA-256:** 0de6e6bc4b0b1e33ff400cefd24d613ebba0e51593824266e966af254cd636b5