Windows file preview - similar to preview pane in explorer

Question

In Windows 7 (and I think Vista) the Explorer has a preview pane that lets you see the contents for some file types (MS Office, images, etc). Is there any API available that allows you to access this functionality?

I've been using the WindowsAPICodePack which has a ShellFile.Thumbnail, but this seems to only expose the thumbnail icon for file types that Explorer is able to view. For instance, for a Word file it only displays the MS Word icon, where Explorer can actually preview the contents of the file. It does work like I want for image types, but not for other types of files.

Solution 1

IPreviewHandler

Solution 2

Sample code (though hard to read... have to highlight the text) is here: Hosting vista/office 2007 previewers in winform application