Can I use one of standard Outlook's previewers to preview other file types?

Question

Outlook's "Windows TXT previewer" only previews attachments with extension .txt. Is there a way to tell Outlook (2010) to use "Windows TXT previewer" on other type attachments?

For example, I would like to use it to preview .csv files and some other extensions that are just text.

Answer 1

Here is a registry change:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Excel.CSV\ShellEx]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Excel.CSV\ShellEx\{8895b1c6-b41f-4c1c-a562-0d564250836f}]
@="{1531d583-8375-4d3f-b5fb-d23bbd169f22}"

Here {1531d583-8375-4d3f-b5fb-d23bbd169f22} is GUID for text previewer (listed among HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\PreviewHandlers) and {8895b1c6-b41f-4c1c-a562-0d564250836f} is special ID that identifies previewer for this filetype. It may be different for other verisons of windows, http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/cc144143(v=vs.85).aspx may or may not have more details

Answer 2

In order to achieve your goal, you have to change some entries in the Registry. Preview HAndlers have GUIDs that are stored in the Registry. For each filetype, if there is one available, there is a preview handler.

For .csv files you need the Preview Handler from Microsoft Excel since a .csv file is Excel.