How to View .FLV as Thumbnails in a Windows XP Folder

June 28, 2009 by Lee Jones
Filed under: FIX-IT, HOW TO 

flv thumb1 How to View .FLV as Thumbnails in a Windows XP Folder

Flv video files are a very popular video file type used throughout the internet. In fact probaly 80 percent of all video viewed online are svaed in the flv format

The problem comes when you download an FLV video file to your computers folder and you open a folder full of FLV’s in Windows Explorer only to find they all look the same, just a simple icon

It would be much easier if you could see a small image of what the contents are, and this post will expalin the method of how you can do it.

The first thing to do is ensure when you open the folder that contains an FLV video file or any image/video file for that matter, and that you have actually selected Thumbnail from the selection. . . Otherwise you will not see an image no matter what !. . . . . . See below.

thumb How to View .FLV as Thumbnails in a Windows XP Folder

The second thing to realise so you can see an image of the flv video file in windows explorer, is that you have the codec for that file installed on your computer, don’t worry if you don’t know what a codec is, a simple installation is all that’s required

RECOMENDATION: I would recomend you install the K-light codec pack, this will not only provide you with the flv codec but many others as well, and once installed you will have the function to see all popular file types that are available today.

You can download it from here : -Download K-Lite Codec Pack

just make sure you download the one as shown below 4.9.5 FULL

UPDATE : – Just ensure you download the latest FULL version, if after a while it stops working, it’s probably because a windows update has changed something. Just download the latest version again, and it will then work as before !

codec1 300x194 How to View .FLV as Thumbnails in a Windows XP Folder

There are 2 simple methods

 

Method 1

The first method is acheved by installing the k-lite codec pack as above, but when you install you need to select Make thumbnail possible for the following file types.

select1 How to View .FLV as Thumbnails in a Windows XP Folder

With this installed you should now see the thumbnail of the flv video file, sometimes this does not work, see the second method.

Method 2

This involves making a REG file to write to the registry. . . . . . . . .

Copy the code below, and paste it into notepad, then save the file onto your desktop as a reg file, just name it something like flv.reg and save. 

REGEDIT4

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

With the reg file on the desktop simply double click and follow the instructions and your done.

Or

Simply download the reg file to your desktop, and use that.
Download Here

How to use this method for others -

The code as shown below will not only write to the registry to display FLV thumbnails it will also display thumbnails for .MOV and . MP4 . . . As before copy and paste or download the prepared reg file.

REGEDIT4

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

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

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.mp4\ShellEx\{BB2E617C-0920-11d1-9A0B-00C04FC2D6C1}]
@=”{c5a40261-cd64-4ccf-84cb-c394da41d590}”

Download here

Hope that helps,

any questions, please feel free to leave a comment

I have other Fixes for common windows XP problems – click here

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Comments

10 Comments on How to View .FLV as Thumbnails in a Windows XP Folder

  1. Flv Players on Tue, 4th Aug 2009 12:42 PM


    2. very informative post. Thanks for given this great post…

  2. Andrew on Fri, 1st Jan 2010 10:18 PM


    3. Thanks! It was very useful!!!

  3. daniel on Wed, 3rd Feb 2010 6:45 AM


    4. No this doesn’t work! Tried both ways!

  4. Lee Jones on Wed, 3rd Feb 2010 9:39 AM


    5. If it stops working, it’s due to a windows update, just download the latest Full version of K-lite and it will start to work just as before.

  5. daniel on Fri, 5th Feb 2010 5:43 PM


    6. Ok, good to know! But I believe that this is due to that some flv-files are rendered with a H264/AVC (MP4) container and those files don’t show up as thumbnails. “Normal” flash rendered videos, however, still give proper thumbnails. Maybe this could be something to look into?

  6. Daniel on Mon, 8th Feb 2010 1:04 AM


    7. Ok, so I updated the K-Lite Codec Pack to 570 (feb 2010) and now explorer (WinXP pro SP3) shows thumbnails for both “normal” flv-files and those with H.264/mp4 containers. Others may perhaps confirm this.

  7. Carlton on Thu, 15th Apr 2010 4:52 PM


    8. Your answer helped me greatly with my problem. Thank you for helping me fix my problem.

  8. Lee Jones on Wed, 5th May 2010 7:49 PM


    9. Your correct Daniel -

    If it stops working, it’s probably due to a windows update, just download the latest Full version of K-lite and it will start to work just as before.

    any problems let me know.

    This will also allow you to view avi’s MPG4’s as well as FLV’s plus a lot of others, which makes it so much easier to see what you have in a folder !

  9. Daniel on Mon, 10th May 2010 10:34 AM


    10. Glad to see it’s working! And yes, windows update (or something ells) did manage mess up the thumbnails once again but as you say, the update of K-Lite fixed it (this time 590)!

  10. Daniel on Wed, 12th May 2010 10:57 AM


    11. Well, just as you thought you had it, with K-Lite 591 this feature unfortunately no longer works. I guess it’s back to the old basics again or keep with older versions.

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