Enable Iconic Preview of Bitmaps Intended For Windows XP Windows 2003 Windows 2000 Windows Me Windows 98 Windows 95 By default, you can view iconic previews of Icons (.ICO files), Cursors (.CUR files), and Animated Cursors (.ANI files). You can configure Windows to show iconic previews of Bitmaps as well. Run the Registry Editor (REGEDIT.EXE). Open HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\ PAINT.PICTURE\ DefaultIcon, and change the (Default) value to "%1." Note: If BMP files are no longer associated with MSPaint, you'll have to replace PAINT.PICTURE above with whatever is associated with the BMP extension. Note: If you've accidentally disabled it, the same process will work for ICO files. Note: To turn off iconic preview of bitmaps, select Options from Explorer's View (or Tools) menu, click on the File Types tab, find the bitmap file type in the list, click Edit, and then Change Icon. This article has been recently supported by and featured on this Internet Webhosting Guide Written by: Annoyances.org Last updated: Wednesday, February 7, 2007 Care to discuss this article with other Windows users? Select your operating system here, and click Continue to post your question. - Choose your OS -Windows 7Windows Server 2008Windows VistaWindows Server 2003Windows XPWindows 2000Windows MeWindows 98Windows 95 Previous discussions about this article: (open a message to see applicable responses, if any) [Windows XP] Question about 'Enable Iconic Preview of Bitmaps' (James Halmayr: Saturday, November 9, 2002) [Windows XP] Question about 'Enable Iconic Preview of Bitmaps' (Mark: Monday, December 2, 2002) [Windows 2000] Question about 'Enable Iconic Preview of Bitmaps' (NotSomeOther Jon: Thursday, July 10, 2003) [Windows 2000] Iconic Preview of other file types? (Joe Sewell: Thursday, May 6, 2004) [Windows 98] Question about 'Enable Iconic Preview of Bitmaps' (ryan: Friday, March 4, 2005) Return to "Customizing Windows"