Windows 7: Thumbnails for video files no longer showing in Windows explorer

Somewhere along the line windows explorer stopped displaying thumbnails for video files in My Videos (see pic). I'm not sure what triggered the change but a few things I did recently include uninstalling Windows Media Center and rebuilt the WMP library.



A few things I tried to fix, all failed:
1. played around with the Tools/Folder Options/View settings in win explorer
2. Control panel/Performance Information and Tools/Adjust Visual Effects is set to "Adjust for best appearance"
3. Uninstalled/reinstalled WMP12 via control panel

The thumbs appear perfectly when viewed in WMP but not in explorer windows, any ideas? Thanks.

Hi, pde709.

Give this a go. The second article is a problem similar to yours.

• How to Enable or Disable Media and Video Thumbnail Preview in Windows XP
• Win 7 - Thumbnails missing from Mpeg, WMV and FLV video files

Thanks,
Harvey Meale

I'd tried the first option but got error "The module shmedia.dll failed to load..."

But the second option worked. Although I didn't attempt to uninstall any currently existing codecs (it appears I have 99 existing codecs installed and I have no idea what is what) I went ahead and installed K-Lite 64 bit 3.7.0, rebooted, and the thumbnails display perfectly now.

Thanks Harvey. Rep+1

Hi, pde709.

Great! I'm glad I could help.

Thanks,
Harvey Meale

Thank you Harvey. I had the same problem with the same icon and the second solution worked for me also