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Display .mov thumbnails in Windows XP (9 Comments) Thursday, Mar 13, 2008 7:46 am

My Panasonic digital camera records movies in .mov format.  I don't know why, and I can't change it.  The problem is that Windows XP doesn't show thumbnails for .mov files, which is an issue when I want to look through my pictures and videos with the whole "View → Thumbnails" option selected.  I searched the internet for a solution several months ago and didn't find anything.  I just searched again this morning and found a pretty simple solution, though I'm surprised at how relatively obscure it is and how hard it was to find.  Here's what you need to do: 

  1. Download QuickThumb.dll from here.
  2. Go to Start → Run and type regsvr32 QuickThumb.dll.
  3. If there's an error, download msvcr70.dll from here and repeat step 2.
  4. Go to a directory with .mov files, switch to thumbnail display, and possibly press F5 to refresh.

I can't believe I didn't discover this sooner.  That really annoys me.  And it annoys me that the internet wasn't much help for a while. 

(I'm hosting all necessary files here.)

yoyo Friday, Jun 27, 2008 9:25 pm

The .txt you include is a bit more accurate. I believe both files need to be places in c:\windows\system32 and then the command you run is regsvr32 QuickThumb.dll; WITHOUT '/u' (which i think is the switch to UNregister..)
Thanks a lot for putting this together. Very handy :)

Dave Wednesday, Jul 2, 2008 2:02 pm

Hmm, you're probably right.  I changed it in the post above.  Thanks.

John Friday, Sep 19, 2008 10:10 am

How cool is this!
Struggled without for years.
Makes life so much easier!
THANK YOU VERY MUCH!

Nathan Tuesday, Oct 7, 2008 2:13 pm

I just wanted you to know that you probably just saved me a freelance video editing job... I had been struggling with this for days and was almost ready to give up. Thank you so much!

Dave Tuesday, Oct 7, 2008 2:31 pm

Awesome!  Glad my little discoveries are actually helping people.

Shaun Saturday, Oct 25, 2008 3:00 pm

Fantastic. Thank you.
One problem though: when using the Search function in Explorer (with View set to Thumbnail) Explorer crashes just as the last thumbnail is displayed. (Windows XP)

Dave Monday, Oct 27, 2008 10:26 pm

Hmm that's a shame.  I should've said at the beginning that I can't guarantee it won't make your computer blow up.

anticyclope Tuesday, Nov 18, 2008 2:16 am

For video files you can use Thumbnailer from CapTrue. It is a WMP plugin, and when you using it you can assign ANY frame of your video as a thumbnail. Works with .mov and .mkv either.
http://www.captrue.com/thumbnailer.html

Matias Saturday, Dec 13, 2008 2:47 pm

Thanks!!!!!!!!     por fin encontré la solución a mi problema...!!!!
GRACIaS!!!!
problema para ver vistas miniatura en el explorador de windows xp, se ralentiza, video .mov

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Hi, my name is Dave Hosier, and this website is where I write my unfounded opinions on trivial matters. Feel free to look around, but please refrain from reading anything.

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