Practicing the Black Art (01/01)
Practicing the Black Art Preview Enhanced
by Vinny La Bash
Member of the Sarasota Personal Computer Users Group, Inc.
Figure 1
Windows lets you preview many kinds of graphic files as long as you have as Web Page selected in a Folder's View Menu. See Figure 1.
This can be useful because you don't have to open an application and then load the images in one-by-one to find what you need. Most graphic images are static. There is no motion associated with them so they don't behave like movie or animation files. Because of this, the preview function does nothing for you if you want to take a quick look at a movie clip, listen to part of a sound bite or glance at an animation file.
Microsoft, however, has given us a way to extend the capabilities of the as Web Page option. For whatever reason, they buried this information deep within their Knowledge Base. You just have to wonder why they seem to go to so much trouble to hide useful things from the people who buy their products. Let's reveal what they conceal.
- Open Windows Explorer.
- Navigate your way to the C:\Windows\Web folder.
Figure 2
3. From the View menu, select Customize this Folder.
4. Select Create or edit an HTML document as illustrated in Figure 2 and click Next twice.
At this point, Windows opens a Notepad document containing the controlling HTML code. Don't be intimidated by its appearance. We are interested in only one line of this mysterious looking document.
5. From the Search menu choose Find.
Figure 3
6. In the Find dialog box type wantmedia and click on Find Next. See Figure 3.
The search function should locate a line that begins with "var wantMedia = false". There will be some extra spaces for formatting and there may be additional text in this line. Pay no attention. The extra information is for Geeks.
7. Change the word 'false' to true. It doesn't matter if you type upper, lower or mixed case.
8. From the File menu, select Save. The File menu closes.
9. Open the File menu again and select Exit. Notepad closes.
Figure 4
If you have any Explorer windows open, you need to close them before the change will take effect. From now on anytime you have a multimedia file in a folder, you can watch or listen to it before opening it.
Find a folder with a movie file in it. That's a file that ends with AVI, MOV, MPEG or MPG. Highlight the file and press the Play button that appears under the thumbnail image. You can also preview sound files, those that end in AU, WAV, or MID. See Figure 4. :
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Copyright 2001. This article is from the January 2001 issue of the Sarasota PC Monitor, the official monthly publication of the Sarasota Personal Computer Users Group, Inc., P.O. Box 15889, Sarasota, FL 34277-1889. Permission to reprint is granted only to other non-profit computer user groups, provided proper credit is given to the author and our publication. We would appreciate receiving a copy of the publication the reprint appears in, please send to above address, Attn: Editor. For further information about our group, email: admin@spcug.org/ Web: http://www.spcug.org/
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