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WinXP .mov thumbnails (57) 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. Copy to C:\Windows\System32.
  3. Go to Start → Run and type regsvr32 QuickThumb.dll.
  4. If there's an error, download msvcr70.dll from here and repeat steps 2 and 3.
  5. 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

muhammed Friday, Jan 9, 2009 1:32 am

thanks for sharing such great idea i was suffering for decades  !

Ron Saturday, Jan 17, 2009 9:09 pm

Thank you for this

Matthew Thursday, Jan 29, 2009 2:26 pm

Thanks so much! I have wanted to continue editing home video clips of my children, and with my new Casio camera/video camera only producing .MOV files, I was a bit lost on how to continue without the painstaking task of viewing each clip "blindly" to find the right ones. This worked! You've saved me hours...and nerves!! ;-)

Shawn Thursday, Jan 29, 2009 3:55 pm

I'm getting an Explorer error in quickthumb.dll everytime I attempt to set the view mode to thumbnails in explorer. I put the files in windows/system.. how can I unregister quickthumb.dll? This is annoying...

Dave Thursday, Jan 29, 2009 3:59 pm

I believe you unregister with regsvr32 /u QuickThumb.dll.

Nigel Sunday, Mar 8, 2009 10:15 am

Brilliant, thanks.
I have been relying on seeing the thumbnails through Google's Picasa but this is better.

panojack Friday, Mar 13, 2009 1:01 pm

Not working. Both QuickThumb.dll and RealThumb.dll crash my WinXPSP2 :((

bubu Monday, Apr 27, 2009 11:41 am

Thank you!
It's really useful for my animations. Thanks.

Jackie Monday, Jun 22, 2009 1:09 pm

says I cannot open the .dll file.  What am I doing wrong?

Dave Monday, Jun 22, 2009 2:10 pm

You're trying to open the DLL file.  Don't.  Follow the directions.

Deano Sunday, Jun 28, 2009 10:00 am

Brilliant, had trouble installing in Vista had to turn off UAC to get the dll to register, you may want to add that to the instructions

florex78 Saturday, Jul 4, 2009 3:39 pm

Thanks man .... this really helps me a lot . Again ... many thanks for this post .

Zane Wednesday, Jul 29, 2009 1:47 pm

I found this dll yesterday and tried and it crashed stating "the instruction at "0x01e827de" refrenced at "0x00000020".  The memory could not be "read"." with different addresses every time.  It seems to crash when it tries to paint the thumbnails.  I noticed when I copied MSVCR70.dll there is one already there that is 336kb (as opposed to the one you provide which is 300kb).  First I copied both files to system 32, registered quickthumb.dll then tested with a crash.  Then I tried with the origional 336kb MSVCR70.dll, unregistered and registered quickthumb.dll with a crash.

I am running SP3.

I appreciate any help getting this to work.  I looked into the UAC thing but that looks like a vista issue.

Dave Wednesday, Jul 29, 2009 2:08 pm

I have no idea.  I'm just the messenger.

FinnyDD Friday, Oct 2, 2009 7:51 pm

Does this work for Vista x64Bit?  Any help is appreciated.

sb Friday, Jan 22, 2010 5:30 pm

cheers works a treat!

X Tuesday, Feb 16, 2010 10:24 pm

almost two years later, still works XD thank you

villa Thursday, Feb 18, 2010 9:07 pm

tnk, works super ok for my sp3

Sam Tuesday, Mar 23, 2010 9:51 pm

Thanks so much!!! Works great!!! Respect Yoooo!!

Sith Saturday, Apr 10, 2010 9:18 pm

Works fine for all movs,exept for hd=(It crushes win explorer,still thx)

Rick Monday, Jun 7, 2010 12:14 am

Hi.. downloaded today QuickThumb.dll v0.21 and placed it in C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32 folder. Upon viewing my pictures folder containing .MOV files from my Kodak camera, it crashes windows Explorer almost immediately. I'm presently using XP sp3. I'll Google some more.
Rick

Mac Thursday, Jun 10, 2010 4:55 am

Works like magic!! Million thanks~

Orelia Sunday, Jul 4, 2010 4:34 am

Work! Many Thanks!

sharoni macaroni Tuesday, Jul 6, 2010 8:36 pm

Windows XP Professional, SP3   -- worked like a CHARM~   Thank you.

Viv Wednesday, Aug 11, 2010 5:01 am

Thank you, this worked for me!

steve zabrisky Thursday, Nov 4, 2010 5:16 pm

works perfect~!  makes my workflow 100x more efficient.

Edub Tuesday, Nov 23, 2010 12:08 am

Same deal with me, SP3 installed and Explorer crashes to blank desktop

Delta Echo Tuesday, Dec 21, 2010 10:43 am

XP Pro SP3 using "regsvr32 QuickThumb.dll" downloaded right to /windows/system32  works like a charm.  Excellent project, excellent use of system resources for a tweak that SHOULD have been in XP all along!  Cheers!

Tim Thursday, Dec 30, 2010 4:06 pm

Thank you so much for posting this.  Very useful!

Erik Sunday, Feb 27, 2011 9:41 am

Can't remember a moment where I was as happy as a few minutes ago.
IT WORKS!!!!! Finally after 8 years the solution.
Saves me a hell lot of conversions and search actions now.
btw: I only copied the QuickThumb.dll in system32 because the existing file was newer
and it works perfect.
Thanx from Holland, haha

Stefan Monday, Mar 7, 2011 4:43 pm

This works like a charm. Installed it under XP SP3. No msvcr.dll needed. Worked instantly.Thank you very much.  Now I need a simple way to cut .mov files (avi. files i simply cut in VirtualDub, but with .mov this won't work)

Wes Nile Sunday, Mar 13, 2011 4:58 pm

It really worked! Thankyou so much for posting this. I was looking for 2 days.

sevy75 Sunday, Mar 27, 2011 12:57 pm

Hoorah!

miguel Monday, May 30, 2011 8:10 am

hey I did exactly and have an error, it says that quickthumb.dll is not an executable file...
I am runing windows XP 64bit

Manjula Wednesday, Jun 15, 2011 12:10 pm

Brilliant. it works for me xp, sp2. I did almost everything and nothing worked till this post. Thanks Dave..

Mike Thursday, Jun 23, 2011 6:23 pm

This procedure will crash Windows Explorer.  Really not recommended.  I'm a bit skeptical of those that say it worked.

Shawn Friday, Jun 24, 2011 12:25 am

You should be weary-- because it doesn't work.

Erik Friday, Jun 24, 2011 5:34 am

With me it still works on 2 computers (Windows XP 32Bit SP3)
No crash of explorer etc. or other issues. Just needed the Quickthump.dll file

Maybe it has to do with the 64bit versions of WindowsXP
My next install will be Windows7 so this issue will be solved.

@Mike: If it doesn't work for you, sorry. You have to find an other solution.
But no reason to be skeptical on those of who worked the patch for.
I'm also not sceptical of your copy-paste capabillities ;-)
It still was worth the try

Mike Monday, Jun 27, 2011 6:32 pm

I am skeptical only because it certainly doesn't always work (read those reports in every forum that discusses this dll) and crashing Explorer is a very serious potential side-effect, but in hindsight I agree with you that I should not have used that word in the context I did, as it infers the (whole) truth was not told, I apologize.  What I'm inclined to believe is that for those users in which this dll does work there is some additional file(s) present which allow this to work for them, otherwise how could this work for some, and absolutely crash Explorer for others?  You see, it didn't just crash Explorer once (while being implemented), but will not allow Explorer to run until the dll is unregistered.  For some users this would be considered catastrophic.

I too, have tried this dll on several 32bit XP SP2 and SP3 machines, although always unsuccessfully, and always with the crash.  What I would like to see is a complete and reliable solution to this issue.  If Quicktime or another MOV codec is installed this registry entry can work:

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.mov\ShellEx\{BB2E617C-0920-11d1-9A0B-00C04FC2D6C1}]
@="{c5a40261-cd64-4ccf-84cb-c394da41d590}"

This registry entry does not, and can not, cause Windows Explorer to crash, so is ultimately more secure(reliable) than the dll, but again, an appropriately installed codec is required.  I accidentally came back to this page today because of my ongoing search for a reliable solution.  I'm glad I did, because the more people discuss this issue, the more likely a 100% reliable solution (if there is such a thing) will be found.  I think Mike B, the author of this dll, should have gone a bit farther than "...your results may vary" in his warning.

Erik Wednesday, Jun 29, 2011 5:19 am

Mike,I agree with you. I also was searching the web for a solution. Installed numerous programs and
codec's. (k-lite codec pack etc) but nothing worked for me.
This DLL did the job for me. Don't know why.

But to play save it's better to install a MOV codec and add that registrycode of your's
Only be carefull when you edit your registry, you could end up in the same crash...
Not for you, but for some people who are not known to a registry editor.
But I added it into my fix list for my next xp install, so thanx.

Defenitily not sceptical of your capabillities, thumps up !! Apologizes on my side ;-)

Paul Tuesday, Jul 5, 2011 3:59 am

Dave you're awesome. Over three years later your solution still works as a charm.  It took a minute or two to go through the entire process.  No issues.  Thanks.

Filip Sunday, Sep 11, 2011 4:38 am

THANKS A LOT!!!!!

Alex Wednesday, Oct 19, 2011 2:23 am

Fantastic, cheers for this!

Mark Wednesday, Nov 9, 2011 5:20 am

Thank you so much, this has been a major irritation since I got an IPhone

Kevin from Germany Saturday, Dec 3, 2011 10:13 am

Dude!!!! :D  the shiat! I´m so greatfull for your help! :-) it actually worked out ;D

Stefan Saturday, Dec 3, 2011 12:01 pm

I had to uninstall (unregister) it again, because my explorer was crashing when i got into folders with .mov files. First it was working but since 2011 I got problems. I dont know exactly why, but i think there a certain types of .mov files, that it can't handle... =(  Would be nice if the bug could be fixed, or at least if the explorer didnt crash (no matter if there is no thumbnail)... greets

Christy Sunday, Mar 4, 2012 12:47 am

was skeptical at first... Windows XP SP3 works like a charm...

Richi near Frankfurt/M. Thursday, Apr 5, 2012 6:32 pm

Thanks Dude, that solved my sorrows. Windows sucks in that way, your tip works great! First time i used those kinda codes, I feel like a real Computer-Nerd ;-)))

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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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