Enable or disable Windows Media thumbnail preview in Windows XP

Windows XP automatically generates the thumbnail preview for standard images, videos some documents like PDF files supported by the operating system. This media preview is shown in the Details pane on the left side of the Windows Explorer. The preview thumbnails are also generated when the files are viewed in the Thumbnails view. The following picture shows the media preview thumbnail in the Details pane :

Media Thumbnail Preview in Windows XP

Note : You should be logged into an administrator level account to perform these steps.

If you want to enable or disable it, then you can do with just one command. Here is how :

Disabling :

  1. Press the keyboard shortcut Windows logo key + R to open the Run dialog.
  2. In the Run dialog, type the following and press Enter :
    regsvr32 /u %windir%system32shmedia.dll

    Disabling Media Thumbnail Preview in Windows XP

  3. That’s it. Now you have disabled Windows Media thumbnail preview in your Windows XP.

Enabling :

  1. Press the keyboard shortcut Windows logo key + R to open the Run dialog.
  2. In the Run dialog, type the following and press Enter :
    regsvr32 %windir%system32shmedia.dll

    Enabling Media Thumbnail Preview in Windows XP

  3. That’s it. You have enabled Windows Media thumbnail preview.

If you have enabled Windows Media thumbnail preview and still cannot see the thumbnail previews of your videos, then you may have to install the video codecs. A good source of most of the videos codecs is K-Lite Mega Codec Pack.