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Non-blocking thumbnails for media files


Uncle Bill

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Hello everybody!

I've been investigating one of the most peculiar issues of XP (Vista is not affected): the Shell Media Handler extension preventing the user from moving/renaming/deleting a file ("cannot move/rename/delete FILENAME : file in use by another user/application" errors).

This behavior occurs especially when dealing with .AVI/.MPEG video files encoded with divx or similar 3rd part codecs: the shmedia.dll library, responsible for thumbnail generation in WinXP, tries to read through the whole file to create the picture to be displayed in explorer, plus mixed file details. Since the library is not compiled to natively support compressed video files, it begins to scan said files from start to end to gather additional details, blocking their position in the meantime. This happens with both small and large video files, even if you are not using thumbnail view!

The interesting thing is that thumbnail generation and metadata retrieval actually happens almost immediately, utilizing the first frame of each file, so there's no actual need to keep this scanning operation going on.

A huge search finally detected the following solution, inspired by this page on the CCCP page, and developed by myself on my blog:

1 – Download Haali Media Splitter package from its official website.

2 – Deactivate Windows Integrated shmedia.dll thumbnail handler using start/run and then typing:

regsvr32.exe /u shmedia.dll

3 – Install Haali Media Splitter, taking care to tick in its shell extension module when asked.

4 – Open notepad and paste in it the following lines:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.asf\ShellEx\{BB2E617C-0920-11d1-9A0B-00C04FC2D6C1}]
@=”{327669A0-59A7-4be9-B99E-1C9F3A57611A}”

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.avi\ShellEx\{BB2E617C-0920-11d1-9A0B-00C04FC2D6C1}]
@=”{327669A0-59A7-4be9-B99E-1C9F3A57611A}”

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.flv\ShellEx\{BB2E617C-0920-11d1-9A0B-00C04FC2D6C1}]
@=”{327669A0-59A7-4be9-B99E-1C9F3A57611A}”

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.mpe\ShellEx\{BB2E617C-0920-11d1-9A0B-00C04FC2D6C1}]
@=”{327669A0-59A7-4be9-B99E-1C9F3A57611A}”

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.mpeg\ShellEx\{BB2E617C-0920-11d1-9A0B-00C04FC2D6C1}]
@=”{327669A0-59A7-4be9-B99E-1C9F3A57611A}”

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.mpg\ShellEx\{BB2E617C-0920-11d1-9A0B-00C04FC2D6C1}]
@=”{327669A0-59A7-4be9-B99E-1C9F3A57611A}”

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.wmv\ShellEx\{BB2E617C-0920-11d1-9A0B-00C04FC2D6C1}]
@=”{327669A0-59A7-4be9-B99E-1C9F3A57611A}”

5 – Save it as a .reg file, close notepad then doubleclick on your new regfile, to add its infos to your registry.

6 – Open up any folder full of videos, turn on the Thumbnail view….and enjoy thumbnails plus files free to rename/delete. NO MORE BLOCKS!! :P

FootNote: meddling with the registry is not always a good idea, but it sure IS useful. You can try adding any video file extension you like Haali splitter to generate thumbnails for: just copy one of the above lines and edit the extension, but be warned not all might work correctly.

Mp4 files won’t work, for instance, and, as for any unrecognized file type, Haali will start clogging your system trying to work on it anyway….so I’m warning you: take careful steps! :D

Hope this is useful. Feel free to leave comments. :thumbup

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Thanks for the info, very useful indeed :D

Edit: Btw anyone knows that special tweak or how to get thumbnail for mp3 files on XP shell just like Vista or Windows 7 please? ("Embedded" album art thumbnail for individual files, not folders). Seems in Vista / 7 it's using new version of shimgvw.dll just like with image files. Or maybe someone who is capable should create a special 3rd party thumbnail handler (replacement) for the feature? Would be awesome to port it to XP too...any info and help would be appreciated here, thanks anyway... :rolleyes:

Edited by AMIRZ
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