WinRefine

WinRefine is a small system tweak application designed specifically for helping you change the way you preview files, be they images, videos or audio items. You simply need to hover your mouse cursor over the target item, and the utility automatically displays the image contents in a dedicated panel or plays audio files in the background.

User interface

The GUI of the program is actually the configuration panel, the place where you can tweak the preview mode.
There’s no support for a help manual that could give you detailed information about how can you revamp your system and update the preview mode but the dedicated parameters are easy to decode so you should be able to configure them on your own.

How it works

WinRefine needs minimal user intervention in order to activate the preview mode while you work in Windows Explorer. You can hover the mouse over a supported file and the preview window is automatically revealed.
If you happen to have a large collection of video and audio files you can easily hover your mouse over an audio file and listen to it in the background. Videos are also previewed in a dedicated panel. Using the preview feature you can easily distinguish between media files without having to manually open each one.

Configuration settings

WinRefine gives you the possibility to enable or disable the preview mode, specify the time (in milliseconds) the utility waits before showing the preview, enter the minimum dimensions (width and height) the image should have in order to be previewed, as well as provide the proportion stretch (the size of the preview).
What’s more, you are allowed to set the volume for audio and video files, adjust the transparency level of the Windows tooltip for images, and enable or disable the Windows tooltip for pictures.
Last but not least, the application reveals a list with all the supported file extensions (e.g. ASF, WMV, VOB, WMA, MPEG, MPG, AVI, WAV, MP3, JPEG, GIF, BMP, PNG, PSD). In addition, you may add a user-defined extension to the list.

An overall efficient system tweak tool

All in all, WinRefine provides a handy suite of features for helping your alter the preview mode of your system. The application hasn’t been updated for a long time, so you can make use of its capabilities especially if you are the owner of an old operating system, such as Windows 2K, XP, Vista or 7.