I’ve asked about this issue in the help thread so I thought I’d provide a link to that

http://area.autodesk.com/forum/t57650

basically it’s so that when you are opening or merging a file you don’t need to click slowly through your options one by one using the preview window, you just view files as thumbnails and grab the one you want. I used to be able to do this on Win Xp but not on Vista or Win 7, all I see is the Max logo in thumbnails.

In the thread above I mention a couple of sites that discuss solutions for this but they are beyond my understanding, thought i’d link to them anyway.

http://www.lonerobot.com/Thumb.html

http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-ma...mbnail-control-for-3dsmax

First of all, you obviously missed the Sticky at the top of this forum. Which explains that this wishlist is no longer watched by Autodesk and you should use the Uservoice instead.
But before you go over to Uservoice, I don’t believe your problem is a missing or removed feature that you can request to be reinstated. The reason being that thumbnails of Max scenes are still visible in Explorer for every version of Max including 2011 and 2012. Or they are for me at least.
So what you are experiencing is more likeley a bug. And the correct procedure for bringing bugs you want fixed to Autodesks attention is the Defect Report Submission Form.
But then, are we sure it’s a Max problem or a Windows problem?
You say it worked in Max 8 with XP but not in Max 9 with Vista it did not, and then conclude that it is the newer Max version that broke things. But you also changed OS from XP to Vista.
Could it be that that broke things?
Yes, because I have seen Max thumbnails work in every Max version from 6 onward under XP (and previous ones with Win 2000 and NT). I have never used Max with Vista or Win 7.
That does not definateley mean it’s Windows not Autodesk, but food for thought.
Point being, it’s not a feature request but a bug fix, for one or the other.

Please read the “sticky” informational post at the top of this forum. This foroum is no longer being monitored for “wishes”.

A request for this forum to be made “read only” has already been made.

Max 4.2 through 2013.
XP-64 (SP2)
NVidia 9800GTX-512 (Driver 266.58).
Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz, 8Gb Ram, DX9.0c.

Fair enough point samab, i suppose it is a bug fix (possibly) thanks for the feedback.