Preview pane won't preview

It won’t preview anything…pdf’s, or images. I have tried all suggestions, including uninstalling recent updates - short of fixing registrey files. I’m still running windows 10 - I simply don’t have time to spare to learn windows 11 at this point - on a Lenovo Ideapad 5. My vpn is cyberghost , which is usually running, (but my att/yahoo mail in chromebrowser doesn’t like it so I sometimes have to disable the vpn to get my mailbox started.)
This problem occurred fairly recently…I think. Honestly, I’m so bad with time IDK for sure but it seems recent. I understand it’s a common issue and in the plethora of info I’ve received, it was said that sometimes the anti-virus interferes as it’s trying to protect the device from downloaded files. The timing makes sense but it’s not just downloaded files that are the issue.