materials will not preview in windows 8

[Bridget Gaddis]

I am working with AutoCad architecture.  I downloaded the latest materials library and am able to select materials in nxt and put them in my project but the libraries don't preview in the file manager so I must load every material into the project to see what it looks like.  How can I get it to preview in the file manager.  I just shows a red ball.

[Rich Hart]

There is a batch file in the AccuRender nXt folder that is supposed to get run during the install to register the dll for the Material preview.

Could you try running that and see if it fixes it for you?

Go to C:\Program Files\AccuRender nXt and right click on "reg_thumb.bat" and select "Run as Administrator" to run this batch file.

Hopefully that will fix the material thumbnail previews for you.

[Bridget Gaddis]

Hi Rich,

Thanks for the reply.  I did what you said below and when I try to open the file I am getting the following message:  The module"ArMaterial Thumb64.ddl" was loaded but the call to Diregister Server failed w/error code 0x80070005."  I am using the trial version in the hopes of mastering this program before I spend $500. on it.  I have Ar4 which I previously used with some success but it seems that now  I must pay the full price for the new version and I do not want to run the risk of wasting the money.  I am not sure if this has anything to do with the thumbnail problem.  Please help if you can.

[Rich Hart]

The file you need to register is armatthumb64.dll.  It must be run from an elevated command prompt.

Try the following:

1. Make sure you're logged in as an Administrator.
2. In the start menu All Programs->Accessories right click in the command prompt and select Properties. If your running Windows 8.1,  you can search for "Command Prompt" in the Start Menu to find it.
3. Run the Command Prompt program as an administrator. Either click on Run as Administrator, or select Advanced and check the box marked Run as Administrator, depending on which version of Windows you are running.
4. Run the program-- you should get an Admin Command Prompt window.
5. Navigate to the accurender folder-- usually by entering cd "c:\program files\accurender nxt"
6. Run regsvr32 on armatthumb64.dll, by typing in "regsvr32 armatthumb64.dll" and clicking the Enter key.

Let me know if you get any error messages.

[Bridget Gaddis]

Rich,

Thanks for your help.  Your solution worked.

[Rich Hart]

Great!

Thanks for the update.

[akinlolu olugboji]

What Material preview in windows 8 but not with AutoCad 2007?

[Kevin Lockwood]

My icons in explorer show, but will crash the window in seconds as it generated the thumbnails. Could it be a bad material?? win 8.1 64/nxt 0351-OC12

[akinlolu olugboji]

Be sure to check the sizes (30MB or more)of the material too. The larger they are the problems they tend to spit out.

[Roy Hirshkowitz]

It's possible, although the thumbnail previewer has some code in it which makes it difficult to actually crash, even with a bad material.  (Yours clearly is crashing).  One way to test is to move some materials to a new folder and reset explorer to open the new one.  You may need to unload and reload explorer.  You can do this in Task Manager if you're comfortable-- or by logging in and out if you're not.

[Kevin Lockwood]

I started to try that last night but only did a few before I had to run. Tested it on my "laptop" install at work too. same thing.

[Roy Hirshkowitz]

If you're getting crashes on everything-- then the thumbnail viewer you've got my be bad.  You could try re-registering the one you've got (using the steps outlined by Rich above)-- or try grabbing a new one.

[Kevin Lockwood]

I'll try that too. Its not in all folders. The root material folder crashes when I switch to thumbnails.  If I do that to a sub-directory, it typically wont crash. 

I think its a material because as I turn the thumbs on, as they generate, it appears to crash at the same file. Its just that process is a spit second and I cant tell which file it is, so the elimination process should weed that out... I hope.