In Windows Vista and 7 Explorer, if you set "Thumbnail" view for a folder containing images or videos, it shows the thumbnails having a nice looking border with shadow effect.
In this tutorial, we'll tell you about a small registry trick which helps you in customizing these thumbnails border. You can remove the drop-shadow effect or add different effects to the thumbnails.
So without wasting time lets start the tutorial:
1. Type regedit in RUN or startmenu search box and press Enter. It'll open Registry Editor.
2. Now go to:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\SystemFileAssociations\image (to customize border for images)
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\SystemFileAssociations\video (to customize border for videos)
3. In right-side pane, look for a DWORD value "Treatment". It would be set to 2 for images and 3 for videos by default. Double-click on it and set its value to any of following:
0 - To remove the border (Makes thumbnail preview a little bit faster)
1 - To add drop-shadow effect
2 - To add photo-shadow effect
3 - To add video reel like effect
4. Close Registry Editor and log off and log on again. You can also End Task and restart Explorer using Task Manager.
5. That's it. Now you can have different thumbnail preview borders in Explorer as shown in following screenshot:
PS. If you want a ready-made registry script to do the task automatically, download following ZIP file, extract it and run the desired REG file:
This article was posted by VG in following section: Windows 7, Windows Vista.
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Saleh
Whats the difference between the drop shadow and photo shadow?
VG
^^ Option 2 "Photo Border" adds a small rectangle around the thumbnail to make it look like a photo frame. This option doesnt work properly in Windows 7, thats why you can't see much difference between both. But it works proper in Vista.
Saleh
And I found another key, named video (HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\SystemFileAssociations\video). Does changing the Treatment value alter the border of thumbnails of video files?
VG
^^ Yes. Updated the tutorial.
EGA
wow nice trick....I loved it thanks :)
Lascannon
Whoa... you have epic skills my friend! :O
Ed
I was looking in "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT" and there is no "SystemFileAssociations" in my Win 7. Should I be looking somewhere else?
VG
^^ Thats not possible. Its an essential key and should be present in all systems.