Windows 7 - Useful video thumbnails

There is a known issue with windows having a fetish for selecting the first frame of video for thumbnail generation.

I am curious if there are any work arounds for windows 7 x64 like there are for xp sp3.

Getting thumbnails to be generated for non standard video formats was bad enough, but now my thumbnails are all black because videos typically have a few blank frames at the outset.

I've searched here and found nothing recent/useful.

Has anyone else solved the problem or do I need to chuck it on the "live without it because M$ says so" pile?

The process I used for xp was a modified version of the one explained here.

Downloader Guide: Enable Custom Frame Video Thumbnails in Windows

Clearly however it is out of date.

Thank you for your time.