I had a bit of free time so I managed to do a quick update of the Windows Shell Extensions, specifically to add support for version 7.5 VTF files.

There aren’t many big changes but as part of an update/clean-up of the code I’ve re-written the Windows Vista/7 thumbnail extension to use the new API that came with those versions. Several people told me that they also run on Windows 2008R2 so I’ve now officially added support for Windows 7 and 2008R2 to the installer. I’ve also changed the version number to 1.7.5 to reflect the version of VTF that it supports.

There are still a few 7.5 version files that it can’t create thumbnails for but it seems that is down to a problem with VTFLib more than with the shell extensions themselves.

IMPORTANT: Please un-install any older version of the extensions you have installed first before installing these. There have been some changes to filenames and trying to install this on top of an older version will cause conflicts. The installer should detect and warn you about an older version but for your own sake, un-install the old version first. You can do this from the control panel under “Add/Remove Programs” or “UnInstall a Program”.

One final note. For Vista/7 you also need to install the Visual Studio 2008 SP1 runtime pack. Links for this are given with the extensions download link. I could of included these in the installer but it would of been a 11Mb download instead of 0.5Mb. :/

Sep. 2, 2007 @ 14:29

Well I knew I was taking a bit of a risk with my first Vista compatible shell extension and yes, some bugs did creep in. I do test my stuff as thoroughly as I can but sometimes things slip through the net. :o(

Thanks to those who did take the time to contact me and report their bugs. The two most common problems seems to be missing C++ Runtime files (Microsoft requires specific versions for applications compiled with VS2005 SP1) and the extensions crashing when you right-click on a thumbnail.

The runtime issue is solved by installing them as necessary – I’ve provided links to them above the shell extension download page.

The thumbnail crash problem I’ve tracked down and have released an update to the extensions. As normal, you’ll need to uninstall the old version before installing the new but hopefully this will solve it.

For those of you still having problems, especially with Vista, please let me know if you’re getting any wierd error messages or so on. The easiest way to track and solve a bug is if I can get reproduceable proof of the bug and enough info to diagnose it.