How to change the preview image showed in "details" window in WinXPBrowser's left side

[sadegh]

Hi,
By click on image files in the right side of windows browser, a
preview of that image is shown in the left side of browser in
"details" window.
I need to do some changes in that preview of image (without changing
in the original file). For example, show that preview image in gray
level while the original is a color image.

Any help or links are appreciated.

BTW, I use windows XP OS, and C# .Net 2008.

 

[sadegh]

There's nothing in .NET that supports this.

I am not even sure of the specific unmanaged API used in XP to support
preview of files.  For all I know, only those document types
specifically supported by XP will work.  The API I'm aware for this was
introduced in Vista.  You can find some information on that here:http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc163487.aspx

Even if there's an unmanaged API, shell extensions written with managed
code are unsupported for .NET 3.5 and earlier, because of versioning
issues (you can't load different versions of .NET 3.5 and earlier into
the same process, so a shell extension written that targets one version
could prevent shell extensions written in another from loading in the
Windows Shell).

I have it on good authority that, should a new version actually be
released (they've been saying it will be out soon, but so far hasn't
been), Microsoft's Windows API Code Pack will include support for
writing preview handlers.  But again, it will use the API introduced in
Vista and so won't work on XP.  If you're curious, you can look here:http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/WindowsAPICodePack

Pete

Thanks, Peter.