explorer.exe sound preview

[kpmwrestler]

remember in windows 2000 where if you selected a sound file in a folder or somewhere in explorer.exe, a miniature windows media player would appear on the side of the window and you could play it? is there a tweak for xp to do that? and does vista have that?

[Sylvander]

You want to quickly play/close wave files?

"Search" the "C:\Windows\System32" folder [if it exists] for all exe files [*.exe] and see whether "sndrec32.exe" is present.

If it is, I can tell you how to put settings in the registry to make that the default player for ".wav" files with Play as the default action.

My settings always used to be like like that and I've just put them back that way.
Tried them out and they work just fine.
If I search for all wave files on C: I can go down the list and single click [my Windows is configured to use a single click rather than a double click] and [very quickly] soundrec32.exe will run, the wave file plays and soundrec32.exe closes again.
So it's possible to very rapidly play/close a series of wave files.

I'll be interested to see whether media player tries to grab back those registry settings to make itself the default once again.
So far no sign of that.
"PrevX" will warn me of any attempt to change the registry settings, and I could refuse permission for the change.

[kpmwrestler]

cool. that sounds cool, but in 2000, you could do all sound files.

[Sylvander]

I'm running Win2000Pro.

Which type of sound files did you have in mind?
e.g.
CDA: CD Audio Track.
MP3: MP3 Format Sound.
SND: AU Format Sound.
WMA: Windows Media Audio/Video File.

Are you saying there was a small, simple, speedy player that could play ALL types of sound file?

I have 3 versions of wmplayer.exe.
The classic version is the smallest/fastest, and I like it best.
e.g.
C:\Program Files\Windows Media Player\wmplayer.exe = version 9.0.0.2980
C:\Program Files\WINDOW~1\wmplayer.exe = version 7.10.0.3074
C:\Program Files\Media Player Classic\mplayerc.exe = version 6.4.8.9

Different players are registered [in the registry] to play different file types.

I also have "Open Expert" installed, that allows me to specify/list a number of programs that can be used to open any specific file type.
Hence, MP3 files can be opened by any of the 3 programs shown listed in the image below [in addition to the default player].
A file is opened by right-clicking on it in Windows Explorer and going to "Open With..." in the context menu and choosing one of the programs listed.

I've just set mplayerc.exe [Media Player Classic][as explained in the following posting] to be the default player for MP3 files and that's working ok. :D

[Sylvander]

Here's the settings in the registry key [below left].

I put those in place from "Windows Explorer->Tools->Folder Options->File Types->MP3->Advanced->Play->Edit->Browse..." and navigated to "C:\Program Files\Media Player Classic\mplayerc.exe" [the image below right].

OK'd everything and the setting appeared in the registry as below left, but without quotes around the %1, so I added those to make it "%1" as shown in both below.

Should perhaps mention that before making any changes I exported the "mp3file" key to a reg file.

[kpmwrestler]

hey Sylvander, since you are in 2000, I tell you what I mean and you can try it out. If you are in a folder with sound files in it, select a sound file (don't double click, only click once) and in the left side of a that window, in the same spot picture previews are when you select them, will be a play, stop, pause, and maybe some other buttons. click play and you will hear that sound file.

[Sylvander]

To get that arrangement I had to change a Windows configuration setting as follows...

[kpmwrestler]

that is what I'm talking about, xp doesn't have that, and it is so unfair. I thought xp was supposed to be a better media center pc.

[Sylvander]

I like the classic arrangement best. :)

Perhaps Microsoft discontinued the feature because most people [like me] didn't use it?

Seems to me that it uses an awful lot of space on the window for web view to do very little.
I only found it useful on the "My Computer" window where it auto-displayed the space used on a drive/partition.

[SkyTrax]

Hi,

i agree with kpmwrestler. I had posted a thread for the same problem a couple of months ago, with no success. I have used Win2k Pro for a couple of years and also searched for this feature in WinXP but never found it :(

Frank