Getting rid of those pesky .db files

The Litigation Support Tip of the Night for February 7, 2017 described how to remove thumbnail image files which could not be deleted through the normal right click process. Lately I have found when working in Windows 11 that the technique of deleting the files in the 'Content' view no longer works. I get an error message like this:

This week I was able to successfully implement the solution posted here by Anand Khanse which recommends a change in the Registry Editor. Browse to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows and right click and select New . . . Key

Create a new folder named, 'Explorer' and then right click on it and again select New

. . . select the option for 'DWORD (32-bit) Value', and name the DWORD as DisableThumbsDBOnNetworkFolders

If you double-click on this file a dialog box will open which allow you to set the value data to 1

When I made this change in RegEdit I was able to successfully delete thumbnail .db file after I rebooted Windows.

As always exercise great caution when making changes in Registry Editor.