I keep losing thumb-previews..?

I install W98se, and all my CD's.. tune it up some.. and work with it a few days.. and out of the blue I somehow lose my folder previews..?

Anyone found the path reason that it happens?..

I bootup, run cacheman menory restore, ccleaner, sometimes easy cleaner reg cleaner, sometimes mcafie uninstaller, daily defrag, download a few meta-pix to practice my pix-editing... a couple hours later previews is gone.. and reg restore doesn't fix it...

I know I can use a previews fix added to the registry.. but I would like to find out exactly what it is that I'm doing that shuts down previews in the first place...

What is previews composed of..? It's block diagram..?

How does previews work to create a preview..?

Can a softwares-conflict damage previews?..

Is it a bug that comes with visiting a bully-site, or is it from downloading a buggy bully-hit pix..?

 

Any ideas which keys?.. and possibly how and if, Irfanview, Photoplus8, SeaMonkey, or Winwallpix, pix handling softwares can affect previews in this way..? Is it a conflict between keys..? Is it contradiction between files running the same paths..? Is it a "collision" of sorts..?

 

Is there a way to seal the glitch causing areas of conflict softwares..? as in installing a buffer diode wall..?

It happens before I use my reg cleaning softwares... I load a fresh OS.. then all the pix handling softwares, then load SeaMonkey... A couple days later, after I see I need SeaMonkey to detect pix, I adjust SeaMonkey's settings, and in a few hours, or days, previews is thht gone...

So I downloaded all the previews fixes I could find.. but Regedit just won't see them on the desktop... I suppose I need a better Regedit software...

But I still need to seek-out the solution what's causing this problem...

Are the previews systems files connected to any critical W98se OS system pix?..

 

OK.. I took one of my spare hd's, and loaded it up with everything but PhotoPlus8... Then I went through the system like a bull in a china shop, deleting pix files, helps, uninstallers, read-me's, links.. everything I don't want to ever see on the screen... I stripped out 140 megs of garbage... The thing is working just fine... Everything is working proper...

Thumbs previews is still functioning... There isn't much more I can delete...

The only thing I didn't install was PhotoPlus8... So for now the conclusion is that maybe PP8 kills the W98se previews...
The plan is to go back into the system stripping-out everything else I know the system can run without... It's only a spare hd, and it's only time.. so it really doesn't matter if this hd gets nuked... I am trying everything I can think of... It's just all uh larnin' usperience...

I wish I had a list of system files that I could destroy without harming the OS's basic functionality...