When you click a video file in File Explorer, the Preview pane may neither show the image preview nor the mini-player control for the chosen file. In some cases, No preview available message is shown in the Preview pane for selected or all media file types.
Resolution
Step 1: Enable Thumbnails and Preview Handlers
The first step is to make sure the folder settings are configured correctly.
- Click the File menu in File Explorer, and select Change folder and search options.
- In the Folder Options dialog, click the View tab.
- Uncheck Always show icons, never thumbnails
- Enable Show preview handlers in preview pane
- Click OK.
This enables the thumbnail previews and also activates the Preview handlers that are registered for each file type.
Step 2: Fix the Thumbnail and Preview handler registry entries
There are situations where the Folder Options settings do not make any difference. Some video file types may still show “No preview available” and without displaying a thumbnail. This happens if the preview and/or thumbnail handler shell extension registration is missing for that file type.
By default, the Windows Media Player’s Rich Preview Handler is registered for the following video file types out of the box.
3G2, 3GP, ASF, AVI, M2TS, MP4, MPE, MPEG, MPG, TTS, WMV
The “No preview available” error usually occurs after associating the file type with a different multimedia player but the player didn’t add the preview handler registry entries. The ultimate fix is to add the thumbnail hander and the preview handler shell extensions for media files using the registry fix below.
After running the fix, image thumbnails, as well as the previews, should work fine for the supported file types, no matter which program you set as the default.
Registry Fix
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
;Thumbnail and Preview Handler Registration for Video file types
;Created by Ramesh Srinivasan on July 4 2016
;https://www.winhelponline.com
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.3gp\ShellEx\{8895b1c6-b41f-4c1c-a562-0d564250836f}]
@="{031EE060-67BC-460d-8847-E4A7C5E45A27}"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.3gp\ShellEx\{BB2E617C-0920-11D1-9A0B-00C04FC2D6C1}]
@="{9DBD2C50-62AD-11D0-B806-00C04FD706EC}"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.3gp\ShellEx\{e357fccd-a995-4576-b01f-234630154e96}]
@="{9DBD2C50-62AD-11D0-B806-00C04FD706EC}"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.asf\ShellEx\{8895b1c6-b41f-4c1c-a562-0d564250836f}]
@="{031EE060-67BC-460d-8847-E4A7C5E45A27}"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.asf\ShellEx\{BB2E617C-0920-11D1-9A0B-00C04FC2D6C1}]
@="{9DBD2C50-62AD-11D0-B806-00C04FD706EC}"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.asf\ShellEx\{e357fccd-a995-4576-b01f-234630154e96}]
@="{9DBD2C50-62AD-11D0-B806-00C04FD706EC}"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.avi\ShellEx\{8895b1c6-b41f-4c1c-a562-0d564250836f}]
@="{031EE060-67BC-460d-8847-E4A7C5E45A27}"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.avi\ShellEx\{BB2E617C-0920-11D1-9A0B-00C04FC2D6C1}]
@="{9DBD2C50-62AD-11D0-B806-00C04FD706EC}"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.avi\ShellEx\{e357fccd-a995-4576-b01f-234630154e96}]
@="{9DBD2C50-62AD-11D0-B806-00C04FD706EC}"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.mov\ShellEx\{8895b1c6-b41f-4c1c-a562-0d564250836f}]
@="{031EE060-67BC-460d-8847-E4A7C5E45A27}"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.mov\ShellEx\{BB2E617C-0920-11D1-9A0B-00C04FC2D6C1}]
@="{9DBD2C50-62AD-11D0-B806-00C04FD706EC}"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.mov\ShellEx\{e357fccd-a995-4576-b01f-234630154e96}]
@="{9DBD2C50-62AD-11D0-B806-00C04FD706EC}"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.mkv\ShellEx\{8895b1c6-b41f-4c1c-a562-0d564250836f}]
@="{031EE060-67BC-460d-8847-E4A7C5E45A27}"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.mkv\ShellEx\{BB2E617C-0920-11D1-9A0B-00C04FC2D6C1}]
@="{9DBD2C50-62AD-11D0-B806-00C04FD706EC}"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.mkv\ShellEx\{e357fccd-a995-4576-b01f-234630154e96}]
@="{9DBD2C50-62AD-11D0-B806-00C04FD706EC}"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.mp4\ShellEx\{8895b1c6-b41f-4c1c-a562-0d564250836f}]
@="{031EE060-67BC-460d-8847-E4A7C5E45A27}"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.mp4\ShellEx\{BB2E617C-0920-11D1-9A0B-00C04FC2D6C1}]
@="{9DBD2C50-62AD-11D0-B806-00C04FD706EC}"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.mp4\ShellEx\{e357fccd-a995-4576-b01f-234630154e96}]
@="{9DBD2C50-62AD-11D0-B806-00C04FD706EC}"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.mpe\ShellEx\{8895b1c6-b41f-4c1c-a562-0d564250836f}]
@="{031EE060-67BC-460d-8847-E4A7C5E45A27}"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.mpe\ShellEx\{BB2E617C-0920-11D1-9A0B-00C04FC2D6C1}]
@="{9DBD2C50-62AD-11D0-B806-00C04FD706EC}"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.mpe\ShellEx\{e357fccd-a995-4576-b01f-234630154e96}]
@="{9DBD2C50-62AD-11D0-B806-00C04FD706EC}"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.mpeg\ShellEx\{8895b1c6-b41f-4c1c-a562-0d564250836f}]
@="{031EE060-67BC-460d-8847-E4A7C5E45A27}"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.mpeg\ShellEx\{BB2E617C-0920-11D1-9A0B-00C04FC2D6C1}]
@="{9DBD2C50-62AD-11D0-B806-00C04FD706EC}"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.mpeg\ShellEx\{e357fccd-a995-4576-b01f-234630154e96}]
@="{9DBD2C50-62AD-11D0-B806-00C04FD706EC}"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.mpg\ShellEx\{8895b1c6-b41f-4c1c-a562-0d564250836f}]
@="{031EE060-67BC-460d-8847-E4A7C5E45A27}"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.mpg\ShellEx\{BB2E617C-0920-11D1-9A0B-00C04FC2D6C1}]
@="{9DBD2C50-62AD-11D0-B806-00C04FD706EC}"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.mpg\ShellEx\{e357fccd-a995-4576-b01f-234630154e96}]
@="{9DBD2C50-62AD-11D0-B806-00C04FD706EC}"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.wmv\ShellEx\{8895b1c6-b41f-4c1c-a562-0d564250836f}]
@="{031EE060-67BC-460d-8847-E4A7C5E45A27}"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.wmv\ShellEx\{BB2E617C-0920-11D1-9A0B-00C04FC2D6C1}]
@="{9DBD2C50-62AD-11D0-B806-00C04FD706EC}"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.wmv\ShellEx\{e357fccd-a995-4576-b01f-234630154e96}]
@="{9DBD2C50-62AD-11D0-B806-00C04FD706EC}"
How to use: Copy the above .reg file contents to Notepad, and save the file as fix-video-preview.reg
. Double-click the file to apply the settings to the registry.
This should restore back the thumbnail as well as Preview functionality in Explorer.
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About the author
Ramesh Srinivasan founded Winhelponline.com back in 2005. He is passionate about Microsoft technologies and he has been a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) for 10 consecutive years from 2003 to 2012.
Hello, just tried your solution but i didn’t work. Now I dont even get the “No preview available” in the preview pane. Any ideas?
@Fotis: For which filetype? Can you upload a FileTypeDiag report for that particular file type?
For .avi .3gp .mp4 for sure. Have not checked any others yet.