what's my preview handler?

[jimspoon]

I've been having problems with Xplorer2 not responding, and I want to test out my theory that my PDF Preview Handler may be to blame. I have PDF X-Change Editor installed. I've disabled its previewer before.

I ran the zabkat chkshxtgui utility and checked shell extensions for PDF files.

At first it reported as follows:

3. PREVIEW HANDLER -------------
X64: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft\Edge\Application\113.0.1774.57\PdfPreview\PdfPreviewHandler.dll {3A84F9C2-6164-485C-A7D9-4B27F8AC009E}
X32: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft\Edge\Application\113.0.1774.57\PdfPreview\PdfPreviewHandler.dll {3A84F9C2-6164-485C-A7D9-4B27F8AC009E}

I ran the Sumatra installer and now I have:

3. PREVIEW HANDLER -------------
X64: C:\Program Files\SumatraPDF\PdfPreview.dll v3.4.6.0 {3D3B1846-CC43-42AE-BFF9-D914083C2BA3}
X32: ??? {3D3B1846-CC43-42AE-BFF9-D914083C2BA3}

But the Native Preview in xplorer2 seems to be the same - the same controls, the same right click menu that appears as follows:


Looks like PDFXChange to me.

My HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.pdf key has the default value of "PDFXEdit.PDF" (ProgID)

Now my key HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.pdf\ShellEx\{8895b1c6-b41f-4c1c-a562-0d564250836f} (preview handler) has default value of {3D3B1846-CC43-42AE-BFF9-D914083C2BA3} - which I believe points to the handler Sumatra preview.

But my key HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\PDFXEdit.PDF\Shellex\{8895b1c6-b41f-4c1c-a562-0d564250836f} has a default value of {9B68BDF7-95F9-4A1F-851C-27D822F8E3E9}. A Google Search tells me that's the PDF Xchange Preview Handler.

So I'll just delete that key and see what happens. OK Now I've definitely got a different previewer. Must be Sumatra. Unfortunately it has no zoom control.

I used the Preview Handler Association Editor to change the preview handler to Microsoft PDF Previewer.

chkshxt-gui now reports:

3. PREVIEW HANDLER -------------
X64: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft\Edge\Application\113.0.1774.57\PdfPreview\PdfPreviewHandler.dll {3A84F9C2-6164-485C-A7D9-4B27F8AC009E}
X32: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft\Edge\Application\113.0.1774.57\PdfPreview\PdfPreviewHandler.dll {3A84F9C2-6164-485C-A7D9-4B27F8AC009E}

Same as before, but now the Edge previewer is actually being used by Xplorer2.

It doesn't have a zoom control either but I can change the size of the Quick Viewer pane and the preview will resize accordingly.

So I guess I've figured out how to get my PDF Previewer changed, now I can see whether Xplorer2 responsiveness will improve.

[jimspoon]

Downer for the MIcrosoft Edge previewer - it's slow. Annoying delay for the pdf to appear in the preview pane.

Good point for Sumatra previewer - it's fast. Very little delay in displaying a PDF.

Downer for the Sumatra previewer - the preview pane displays a whole page only. You can't scroll smoothly and display the bottom of one page and the top of the next. The slightest scroll down and you see the next page in its entirety. You can't view an enlarged view of part of a page by widening the preview pane - because it always displays the whole page. In this case the preview pane will display gray bars on either side of the page image.

Maybe there's something out there that's fast but also will give me the zooming and scrolling features I like.

Now I just remembered that the previewer for the PDF Xchange Viewer (not Editor!) was always good in xplorer2. I'll dig up how to get that back.

[nikos]

if you have problems with xplorer2 hanging, use this simple trick
www.zabkat.com/blog/procdump-debug-hung-processes.htm