MKV Thumbnail in Explorer

Hi,

Windows 11 doesn't show MKV video thumbnail in the Explorer (some of them appears as VLC icon). If I change their thumbnail (by editing the header in MKVToolNix), Windows shows the original thumbnail in the Explorer.

Does anybody have this issue? I have no problem with MP4 videos (I change their default thumbnail with "Kid3", it doesn't change MKV video thumbnails). I also have changed the MKV video thumbnail with MetaX, but the new saved MKV video shows its original thumbnail!

I have installed VLC Player. No more codec pack or extra player is installed on Windows.
Raw Image Extension, Webp Image Extensions and Web Media Extensions are installed from Microsoft App Store.

The biggest problem is that .MKV is, in and of itself, a container for various other formats. It's not a format in and of itself, such as MP4.


So, it depends upon the actual contents inside that container as to whether Windows has native thumbnail support or not.

AFAIK, most MKV videos (these days) have MP4 inside them! (It's easier to add multiple audio and subtitle to it with the MKV container). I have checked the encoder with FFMPEG (SS below). It has a High-Efficiency Codec/x265 video stream (stream #0).

Windows 11 shows this specific video (Big Hero 6) thumbnail. If I change its thumbnail, Windows doesn't update the thumbnail (SS above).

Interesting. Perhaps this may help then.

Installing the K-Lite codec pack works for me. Presumably, Windows uses the codec to generate the thumbnails. Download K-Lite Codec Pack

Icaros 3.2.1 works well for me

Free Video Tools for Windows 11 and Windows 10.

@johnlgalt Thanks. The link had something new to learn (it didn't work for me).

@bronskimac I have installed K-Lite on another system (Win 10 21H1), and it doesn't work! I don't want to install any extra codec pack on my Windows 11!

Why does Windows (natively) has a problem with MKV?