MDBU for Office Files

[Stef123]

Not working for *.doc* or any other office file type. I get a white preview that tells me in red letters that it "failed to load an iFilter". Re-installed from them Microsoft. Makes no difference. Maybe I need 32 bit iFilters instead of 64? But the 32-install package refuses to install (error: does not match platform architecture)

Same for PDF. No thumbs, no preview. What settings do I have to tweak to see them in XY? Their checkboxes are ticked in Config > Previewed Formats. All these file types preview nicely in other tools, but now with MDBU I'd rather see them on mouse-down in XY without having to toggle external previewers.

Does this feature depend on XY being installed rather than running portable?

[sfwood]

I get a white preview that tells me in red letters that it "failed to load an iFilter".

Same here--"Failed to load an IFilter Error 80040154"; except, maybe 1/3 of Word files do preview--may be (inversely) related to how accurate the preview panel rendering is, if you want to pursue; haven't gotten any Excel files to MDBU w/o the error, but only tried a few. Excel files in preview panel yield "Do you want to save this file?" dialog. Office 2010.

[klownboy]

Don, you stated in the beta release notes for v14.40.0313 for icon blowup that...

- PDFs are excluded as they are usually better shown as an image thumbnail.

My pdf files blow up when I'm in a detail or list view and left or right click on the icon and pdfs also blow up in thumbnail view when I click the thumb. I see docx files as well and I only have the free AbiWord installed at the moment. So there you go ...

Stef123, what are you using for normal association/viewing of pdfs? I'm using PDF Exchange viewer.

[bdeshi]

@Stef123, All I can say for certain is you don't need to "install" XY.
And about pdf preview: can you preview them in the info pane?
You might try this.

[Stef123]

Thank you Ken and Sammay,
"Enable shell thumbnails" is ticked. My default viewers vary from machine to machine, I have PDF Exchange viewer, but I also tried it on a machine with Adobe Acrobat full version, and also Nitro and Sumatra (both are PFA associated as fast alternatives in my portable XY). No thumbs.

No luck with Excel or Powerpoint, either. Like SFWood I did have some success with Word, an old .doc file. Encouraged by that, I typed a few plain words and no formatting into test.docx, but same error, failed to load iFilter. Checked for their existence, they're installed properly. Besides, all other tools relying on them (FileLocatorPro, UniversalViewer etc) have no problem. Instant previewing of PDF and doc*

The lower info panel - that's a separate story: It does preview docx files nicely, but I never use it because it pesters me with questions "Do I want to save this or that underlying template" (even though I have not changed anything, just previewed, after all)

I never use it for PDF, either, it will always bring up the associated program, opening the pdf in XChangeViewer for instance, instead of keeping the show down in the info panel.

[admin]

Check out this too:
http://www.xyplorer.com/faq-topic.php?id=contentsearch

Yes, you need 32 bit iFilters. I can view (IFilter) DOC and DOCX since I installed OpenOffice.

[Stef123]

Thanks. I suspected the bitness issue to be the problem, but when the 32-iFilter package refused to install on my 64 platform I dismissed it again.

I cannot force OpenOffice onto machines other than mine - is there a work-around to carry along their iFilter feature with a portable XY? Will it interfere with Microsoft's very own iFilters for docx etc? Do you have both up and running, OpenOffice AND MS Office, or is this an either-or decision?

[admin]

Dunno. I don't have MS Office.

[Stef123]

Dunno. I don't have MS Office.

That's what I thought. I rather not mess with it at the moment. Afraid of overriding earlier installations of iFilters that I need in other apps. Might trigger an avalanche of issues.

Thumbs up ( ) for the improved blow-up, anyway. At least I can use it on plain text stuff.
Any idea why XY fails on my PDFs? Could that be related to 32 vs 64 bitness as well? Or maybe iFilters the culprit again? I do have Adobe Acrobats iFilter installed, and TET_PDF_IFilter on another machine. Both iFilters are 64-bit.

[admin]

PDF-XChange Viewer works very well. You other viewers might have overwritten something. I would reinstall PDF-XChange Viewer.

[TheQwerty]

Getting Office IFilters working in XY is a no go - even if you get through all of the pain of getting around Microsoft restricting the installers to only install the filters matching the native architecture it won't work. (At least with Office 2010 - though I doubt 2013 is better.) You could try using an older version of Office and I bet that would work better but I cannot test this; nor is it really a viable solution.

Adobe in their infinite wisdom have made all of their shell extensions only work within executables that identify as Windows or Windows Explorer, so the official PDF plug-ins also generally do not work.

Seems third-party is the best way in both cases.

[highend]

If I install Office 2010 x86 on my Windows Server 2012 R2 (x64) I can see a full .docx document in the "Preview" pane so I guess iFilters work in this case.

Is you Office a x64 installation?

[TheQwerty]

Is you Office a x64 installation?

Nope, 32-bit on Windows 7 x64.

I tried a number of things trying to get it working when Don first added IFilter support but never had any luck.

[admin]

If I install Office 2010 x86 on my Windows Server 2012 R2 (x64) I can see a full .docx document in the "Preview" pane so I guess iFilters work in this case.

Note that iFilters are not repsonsible for that preview. iFilters care for extracting text,

[klownboy]

Hi Stef123, I know you mentioned that you use PDF Exchange viewer, but did you actually make the registry change referred up in Sammay's post? My PDF thumbnails did not work until I did that.