Different Preview Extension?

dpupello · Post by **dpupello** » 2005 Jan 03, 17:43

Weird question:

Is there any way -- using a registry hack, or no -- to add a file extension (.msg) to the preview window?

If one has highlighted a .eml file, which is basically an email message, then you can natively view it in the preview window.

However, our email server saves individual messages as .msg rather than .eml. Therefore previewing the .msg message shows the plain text header of the message, rather than the "native view."

Yes, I suppose I could copy all the thousands of .msg files somewhere else, and bulk rename them to .eml files. But that's a pain in the baboon-red ass.

Especially with hundreds of new files arriving daily.

Ideally I could add .msg so it would preview just as a .eml does. Thanks for any response. Cheers.

Dennis
dennisfp (at) yahoo.com

Post by **nikos** » 2005 Jan 03, 18:00

how do these files look within editor2? i haven't heard of eml files

dpupello · Post by **dpupello** » 2005 Jan 03, 19:20

nikos wrote:how do these files look within editor2? i haven't heard of eml files

eml files are plain text files (email messages) that can be saved by Outlook Express and other email clients. In Outlook Express, just do a "Save As" while highlighting a message and you can see that the default file format to save a message is .eml.

So in Editor2, the .eml file looks something like this [excerpted and enclosed by ***]:

***
Received: from mount.jwc-online.com (unknown [207.65.139.7])
by mail02.wowweb.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 221F3DF07E
From: blah@blahblah.com
To: recipient@email.com
Subject: Etc etc

Body text...

------=_NextPart_001_002A_01C37EC8.5DAFD7F0
Content-Type: text/html;
charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML xmlns:st1 =3D "urn:schemas-microsoft-com

smarttags"><HEAD>
<META http-equiv=3DContent-Type content=3D"text/html; =
charset=3Diso-8859-1">
<META content=3D"MSHTML 6.00.2800.1226" name=3DGENERATOR>
more html here...
***

...and so on. Kind of like the source code of an html page. Source code for an email message, which can contain html of course.

I guess the question is, does the Preview window in Xplorer2 have a list of extensions it pulls from, and can the list be added to? Right now .eml seems to be on the list, while .msg is not.
Because the exact same file, when having the extension .eml, is correctly previewed (natively, like a web page), but if you change the file's extension to .msg, then it previews as a text file. Doh!

Maybe there's nothing that can be done, but it never hurts to ask

Dennis
dennisfp (at) yahoo.com

Post by **nikos** » 2005 Jan 04, 09:41

the only extension list is that for media files

then previewer checks if there is a shell thumbnail handler for the file class (e.g. a graphic or html) -- if not locked in text mode

failing that it tries to load the file as text or binary, depending on the characters it finds.

how do these .msg files look in editor2? could there be an encoding at play?

dpupello · Post by **dpupello** » 2005 Jan 05, 00:20

Hmm, I suspect there may be a "a shell thumbnail handler for the file class (e.g. a graphic or html)" for .eml files, but not for .msg files.

But then again, this is beyond my current knowledge of the inner workings of the registry. :D

As mentioned in the previous post, the .eml files look like plain text files in Editor2 except that they also contain some html and assorted headers that are contained within standard email messages.

Looks like we may be at a dead end on this one for now.

Thanks for the responses.

Dennis
dennisfp (at) yahoo.com

fgagnon · Post by **fgagnon** » 2005 Jan 05, 02:18

I don't use eudora or outlook express, so don't have any recent eml or msg files. The few I found in old archives all preview as plain text (both types).

But here's a sneaky thought ...
Try setting your .msg key the same as the .eml key
Export both keys so you can reinstate them if it doesn't work out.
Make a copy of the .eml key and edit it to act on .msg files; then d-click to chnge .msg key to a .eml clone.

If it doesn't work you can always reinstate the original .msg key.

For reference, on XP-pro sp2, my .msg key exports as:

Code: Select all

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.msg]
@="msgfile"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.msg\msgfile]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.msg\msgfile\ShellNew]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.msg\PersistentHandler]
@="{098f2470-bae0-11cd-b579-08002b30bfeb}"

and my .eml key exports as:

Code: Select all

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.eml]
@="Microsoft Internet Mail Message"
"Content Type"="message/rfc822"

which could be edited to apply to .msg files as:

Code: Select all

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.msg]
@="Microsoft Internet Mail Message"
"Content Type"="message/rfc822"

... but I don't know whether that would generate conflicts.