Windows 7 - Preview Pane

One of the more useful features of both Vista and Windows 7 is the inline "Preview Pane" of Windows Explorer.

On little quirk I've discovered in Windows 7 is that when you resize a Windows Explorer window, the Preview Pane is resized also, in favour of the file lists. However, I like my preview pane a specifc size.

The follow method is one workaround I used with success:

1. Click the "Hide Preview Pane" icon in the upper right corner (to the left of Help) of Windows Explorer
2. Resize the Windows Explorer window to how you want it
3. Click the "Show Preview Pane" icon in the upper right corner (to the left of Help) of Windows Explorer

Has anyone found a way (either via a UI Setting, or a Registry entry) to keep the Preview Pane a fixed size, so that the above workaround does not have to be used?

Yeah, I'm not to crazy about that one myself. I usually end up just manually dragging the Preview Pane line over.

Guys about the preview panel, there's a little thing that im bother about, when i have my mp3's or avi files associated with another program and not windows media player, they cannot be played in the preview panel is there a workaround for this?

Hello Ruly,

Not that I am aware of. I have not seen it work with anything other than Windows Media Player.

Thanks for the reply, well is not like i use it very much lol.

Are you talking about something like this (always open with)?

Another problem:
If a Windows Word 2007 .doc file is selected in Windows Explorer and is shown in the preview pane, then it cannot be deleted. The Word program is being used to show the preview, so the file is in use by another program (Word) and cannot be deleted.

Similarly, if a .doc file is being previewed, then Word will only open it in the read-only mode. Since it already is open with Word in the Preview Pane, opening it in Word is opening a second instance. Word will open multiple instances of a file, but only the first is read-write.

The solution is to turn off the Preview Pane.

Jaysee is right. The .flv file will display the icon of the default application that opens it.The MP4 always gives a preview no matter what program it is associated with

For mp3 files to show a preview,Try this:

If the extension of the picture is ,jpeg, you would need to alter the registry script slightly:





In my case, when I navigate in Regedit to the HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT, I find my Default association is ACDSEE.jpg.

Therefore I modified it for that




If your association is with another graphic editor, just navigate to that key and look for the default value, and substitute that for jpgfile.