How to enable thumbnail previews for my non-standard (mp4 avi mov mkv) video files in Windows 8?

This Software claims to support Windows 8 and do what you need.

• 32-bit editions of Windows XP SP2, Vista, 7, 8 CP or later

• 64-bit editions of Windows XP SP2, Vista, 7, 8 CP or later require the 64-bit installer

• Small footprint and does not install codecs

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How To article here and comments from the author

• I’d also like to mention that this software does not require codecs and as such is vastly more stable than others

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The Shark007 page looked a bit fishy to be (no pun intended) and I couldn't figure out which version I needed (advanced, standard, do I need the 64 bit addon?). So I installed the good old K-Lite codec pack. The advantage is that it not only instantly gives you thumbnails, you can play basically every media file you find with every media player (including WMP). Another benefit for me is that there is nothing you have to configure. I have never found any instability or crashes with it, and I have been using it on and off since the days it was called "KaZaA Lite Codec Pack" :-)

If you have Chocolatey, which is an awesome package manager for windows, its just cinst k-litecodecpackbasic.

The page for Shark007's Windows 8 Codecs claims:

MKV playback is fully supported including thumbnailing.
You can choose any media player you want, everything will play.

Things the Shark pack does that other packs cannot do . . .

1. Full color thumbnails including FLV's and 10bit MKV's (also allows users to select at what point by percentage to grab the thumbnail)

Icaros is the soft you need, and it's made by this Shark007 guy from the other answers.

Official page: http://shark007.net/tools.html

Download page: http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/icaros.html