Windows 7 Explorer Preview Pane for zip files

7-zipwindows-explorerzip

I was wondering if there is a possibility to add .zip file to the explorer preview pane (Windows 7 64 Bit). For example if a folder contains a .zip file i would like to see the content of the .zip file in the explorer preview pane.

I know how to add file types in the registry to be previewed as plain text as you can see in the image below. I have added a xml files to be previewed in the explorer pane a plain text.

enter image description here

But what about a .zip file. It would be nice if in the explorer preview pane i could see what files are inside the .zip file. I use 7-Zip to open my .zip files.

zip preview pane
registry .zip file

Best Answer

You need a Preview Handler for ZIP files, and 7-Zip doesn't provide one. I don't know of any such handler except the one available via the View Data Your Way With Our Managed Preview Handler Framework article on MSDN.

Try it out; it was written for Vista (and Outlook 2007) but should work equally well on Windows 7:

The code download for this article includes a framework that makes it a snap to implement your own preview handlers, and it provides several sample previewers (including previewers for PDF, XML, ZIP, MSI, BIN, CSV, XPS, and XAML files).

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