Thumbnail Previews - Change Border

J.R. · Dec 22, 2009

Thanks Shawn, I was just looking for the way to change my borders.

moinmoin · Dec 22, 2009

It´s a interesting tutorial. Thanks Shawn.

Brink · Dec 22, 2009

You're welcome RA and Moinmoin.

dareheaven · Nov 17, 2010

what about white borders that are used to retain aspect ratio?

right, after i installed this program "thumbnailer", it changed icons to retain aspect ratio, so it adds borders, have a look:

you see on the file selected, you can see that theres a white border created, before i installed that program it wasnt like that, so a registry entry must have been edited, since i already used your tweak to remove the shadows added, there must be another one for these borders to retain aspect ratio, any idea?

the reason i want to remove this so it would be the way it was before (no white borders), because it doesnt look very nice on the desktop, and well i just want to set up my pc to the best i can

thanks in advance

Brink · Nov 17, 2010

Hello Dareheaven, and welcome to Seven Forums.

Did uninstalling the program restore it back to normal?

If not, then you can do a system restore using a restore point dated before you installed that program to undo it and the changes it made.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

dareheaven · Nov 17, 2010

yes it does remove everything that happens, but i need that program for its features, i removed the shadows it added to thumbnails but i want to remove the white borders too without uninstalling, im very sure its posible as after all its only a registry edit that was done when installed i believe

Brink · Nov 17, 2010

I'm not sure what to say since I'm not familiar with that program. Since it's a program that made the change, double check it's settings to see if it may have an option to change the borders. If it doesn't, then I'm not sure how to undo it other than uninstalling the program the made the change and trying another program that doesn't do this.

dareheaven · Nov 18, 2010

ah shame you dont know, yea i have looked at the program from the outside, all settings posible, nothing to do with the regedit thought so i dont know, however i noticed if i changed the file extension to 3gp for example, the borders go away, so its definatelly file associations that are affected, not all files, but if i change videos to 3gp then the thumbnailer tab in properties of the file goes away, so i dont know

btw brink i read your pc build and since i notice your a pc enthusiast you should look into that program its really good, lets you customize your media thumbnails, for example a windows problem, thumbnails are generated at the beginning of the video, that program however lets you pick exact point, or pick where you want the thumbnail to be generated, i have it set to 50% but for thumbnails that dont come out nice i set a specific point, but the program is a bit buggy, if theres a file that the thumbnail cannot be generated for, windows explorer will crash, but i figured out how to get by this, in folder options tick display as icons, then switch to view in details, in organise open up details pane, switch of display as icons, and go through file by file till windows explorer crashes, when it does go back to that file (with display as icons ticked), and convert that file to mp4 for example, sorts the problem out, so say your like me have thousands of video files, once you find the faulty file, and sorted, then thats done and all good, but yeah i also had to manually use this tip you showed us, removing the droped shadows, as i believe its nicer, and now i think i found a way to get past it in a way, changing the file extension to .3gp for all files, that doesnt affect much only the thumbnailer tab in properties, and since its only a container and has the information which program to be opened with that all good

by the way just in case you didnt know, which you propably did, if you want to change all extensions in a folder, say from an .mp4 to .avi do this:

to change multiple extension files without a program, first find the extension you want to change, for example .flv, and you want to change them to .avi, create a blank text document in that same folder, write down

REN *.flv *.avi

just change the .flv part to what ever you want, dont change anything else no space nothing, exactly like that, its case sensitive by the way, make sure in windows explorer you can view all hidden files, extensions and EVERYTHING, rename the .txt file to .cmd, now just double click on that file, delete it when done, you can add several lines of code as you can see above, check all file extensions after, incase ones couldnt be done since there filenames already existed, do those manually.

for multiple lines of code it should look something like this

REN *.wmv *.avi
REN *.MOV *.avi
REN *.mp4 *.avi
REN *.mpg *.avi
REN *.mkv *.avi
REN *.3gp *.avi
REN *.mpeg *.avi
REN *.m4v *.avi
REN *.m4a *.avi

sorry for the long post lol

tomaskucinskas · Mar 20, 2011

Hi,

maybe exists similar fix to change video border for specific video file extension? .mkv file have incorrect.

Brink · Mar 20, 2011

Hello Tomaskucinskas,

Sorry, but no. This will only change the border for all thumbnail previews instead.

You could change the default icon that is used for the .mkv file extension, but you would no longer have a thumbnail preview of it.

tomaskucinskas · Mar 20, 2011

If someone will have same problem just install: DivX

FrozenInferno · Sep 13, 2011

I'm trying to get all my video thumbnails to display as sprockets, but for some reason, mp4 files are displayed with just a drop shadow. I went into SystemFileAsssociactions\video and Treatment is already set to 3. Why are my mp4 thumbnails showing up differently? Also, all of my image file thumbnails are displayed with only a drop shadow even though treatment for image is set to 2. Any help would be much appreciated.

Brink · Sep 13, 2011

Hello FrozenInferno,

How about in the registry location below instead?

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\SystemFileAssociations\image

FrozenInferno · Sep 13, 2011

Like I said, the image directory didn't seem to have an effect either. Nonetheless, I solved the problem. For any filetypes that for some reason ignored the treatment value set in the image or video directories, I created an identical treatment value in each of the filetypes' personal directories under SystemFileAssociations.

Brink · Sep 13, 2011

That's great news FrozenInferno. Thank you for posting back with your results.

twomotor · Nov 12, 2012

Brink,
Followed your tutorial a few years ago and solved the problem - had to do a fresh install of Windows 7 ( 32 Bit ) recently and now can't get it to work. Now there is even a drop down shadow on the blank image in Paint. Thanks for your help
Twomotor

Brink · Nov 12, 2012

Hello Twomotor, and welcome to Seven Forums.

Which option were you wanting?

Could you post a few screenshots showing this and your registry settings for this to see if it may help reveal what the issue may be?

twomotor · Nov 12, 2012

Brink,
Sorry for the slow reply - jumping through this Forums Password hoops. Did a screenshot, looks like a mess, exspanded a lot of stuff looking for "Image".
I am comfortable with the mannual method if you can get me to the right place. Thanks again. Hope I don't screw up the Attachment part.
Twomotor

Brink · Nov 12, 2012

You're at the wrong location in the registry. image is at this location below instead.
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\SystemFileAssociations\image
Did you restart the computer after merging the downloaded .reg file?

Thumbnail Previews - Change Border

To Change Thumbnail Borders using a REG File

To Change Thumbnail Borders in Registry Editor

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