I have a Canon DSLR, and I shoot in RAW. I have no problem viewing and editing the pictures using Picasa or Lightroom, but I would like to have the pictures thumbnails in Windows Explorer, and to be able to quickly view them in the explorer.
Do you guys know where I could get the codec (for free) ? I found a few codec packs that include it, but I feel like I should not have to pay for this.
Since July last year (according to this answer on the sister site for photography), there are now CODECs available for x64 from Microsoft free of charge - these also work for Windows 8.
If you're willing to spend $10, then you might want to try the FastPictureViewer Codec Pack. It works like an absolute charm on my Windows 7 32-bit install, and is rated to run just fine on x64 too.
This page probably doesn't help, as it offers 32-bit codecs only.
Otherwise, you can try to get around the problem by using an alternative, fast image viewer.
I don't have any problem with seeing CR2 files in Windows explorer. Only thing I did was installing Digital Photo Professional from Canon support site or Windows codec.
As far as I know there is no way to modify the thumbnailing codecs built into W7. Windows thumbnailer is not the same as other codecs you can install.
If you discover a way, please post it.
It's not free, however Directory Opus has a Raw Digital Camera plug-in for previewing RAW files, plus it's a brilliant Windows Explorer replacement. The plug-in will also pull out all the metadata associated with the RAW images - good for organisation.
Here a preview;
