Software

Win 7 Tip: Windows Explorer Preview Pane Works Much Better Than Vista’s

7:20AM January 28, 2009 | Jason Chen

Vista had its own version of a preview pane in Windows Explorer, which didn’t work that well and didn’t work for all that many file types, but Windows 7 gets it right.

Win 7′s version activates via a button on the top right of Windows Explorer. It pops out and displays files like music, videos, HTML docs, photos, WordPad docs (but not Word’s .docx flies) directly in the pane without having to open a separate app. It’s not quite as good as OS X Leopard’s Quick Look, which does support PDF and Word and Office docs, but it’s definitely better than Vista’s preview.

View our other Windows 7 tips and our continuing coverage here.


Comments

  • moonman

    March 26, 2009 at 11:20 AM

    It displays docx and pdf, as soon as Office 2007 and Adobe Reader is installed.

  • SRB

    April 11, 2009 at 6:20 PM

    Yeah, great feature…HOW TO TURN IT OFF?

  • Suchit

    April 20, 2009 at 4:30 AM

    Go to any folder , Windows Explorer , Click the drop down box Organize in the top left. Then scroll down to Layout and Click Preview Pane and it should turn off. Repeat to Turn On

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