How to show more Exif info in Windows tooltips?

Windows file browser, explorer, shows a tooltip with some info of the file when I stop mouse pointer over the filename or preview icon. For photos the tooltip shows resolution, date+time, camera model, file type and size of the file. I'd like to have exposure settings show up in the tooltip. Is there a way to have more info pulled from the exif to show up on the tooltip?

In my case it is a Windows XP Home edition. If later Windows versions show more info by default, it would be nice to know, but at this time I would like to have it in Windows XP. Will any of the photo editing/managing programs change the amount of info in Windows file browser tooltips?

In Windows registry the HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\SystemFileAssociations\image has a key "InfoTip" which currently reads prop:Dimensions;WhenTaken;DocTitle;DocComments;CameraModel;Type;Size which looks like just the place to add more detail. But it does not work alone, need something else to edit along with it.

Esa Paulasto

Posted 2013-03-22T16:49:30.930

Reputation: 301

This article seems to address the question directly. http://asomewhatintegratedlife.blogspot.com/2011/08/customizing-windows-7-explorer-infotip.html

– None – 2014-09-04T08:21:26.543

Here is a tutorial by Microsoft on how to create new tooltips. I don't use Windows so I can't do it for you, try it yourself or wait for someone to do it. – Alex – 2013-03-22T18:53:00.527

Thanks, but I had already seen that page, and considered the info on that page more like programmer level stuff, not for a regular user to mess with. Though I am ready to mess with registry. Went to tinker with one entry in registry with not so high hopes of success, and as expected it did not work out. – Esa Paulasto – 2013-03-22T20:04:46.283

@EsaPaulasto doing what you asked requires some knowledge of programming, this is not a regular user-machine interaction. – None – 2013-03-26T09:09:19.750

@PavloDyban Yes, that's how it has started to look like. When I asked the question I was hoping for a reasonably simple way to do it, but it now looks like it is too deep in the geek department. Still, "no can do" is an answer too. – Esa Paulasto – 2013-03-26T17:39:52.920

Answers

This doesn't exactly pertain to the tooltip aspect of Windows, but I use a simple DOS application called ExifTool by Phil Harvey to extract ALL EXIF information from an image into a simple text file.

You can download the application from: http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/

Just place ExifTool program in same directory as your image(s) and execute the following at a command prompt:

exiftool -a -G1 -s somephoto.jpg > exifdata.txt

You can replace "somephoto.jpg" with "[asterisk].jpg" to extract data from all JPEGs in the folder at one time. Using "[asterisk].[asterisk]" will extract from all files possible, not just JPEG.

The commands shown include:

-a will extract all tags, including duplicates -G1 will print group names for each tag -s will shorten the output so it's not too much info

Lastly, the ExifTool application will also let you update/add EXIF data to an image!

Edit: RTF editor stripped asterisks

Edit 2: The exact registry edits that I made are:

The "InfoTip" keys for the following root nodes

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT \ SystemFileAssociations \ .jpg
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT \ *

Adding ";System.Subject" to the end of the "InfoTip" string value

ISOTropic Pixel

Posted 2013-03-22T16:49:30.930

Reputation:

Thank you. Viewing Exif info has not been a problem, though, even the image tooltip is showing all I want when I browse my photos in Olympus Master or Picasa programs. But I'd want more info showing in the Windows file browser (explorer) tooltips too. – Esa Paulasto – 2013-03-23T14:18:16.337

1I was successful in adding the "Subject" field. I had to modify the "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT \ *" node along with the one you listed:

Change the "InfoTip" key. For my example, I added ";System.Subject" to the end and Explorer now shows the Subject tag on hover Things to note: You will probably only be able to add EXIF tags that appear when you right-click and get Properties of an image within Explorer. Also, it looks like you will have to modify all variations of file extensions manually. Meaning .JPG, .JPEG, .TIF, .TIFF, etc. Hope this helps and good luck. – None – 2013-03-23T14:56:59.257

Never thought about checking the properties tab. But, no worries, there are mentioned all exposure values plus a lot more. So, I went to add "FNumber;" into those two places in registry. It did not work. Maybe "FNumber;" is not a valid tag, but what would be? – Esa Paulasto – 2013-03-23T15:58:44.270

1Sorry, I should have tested with something like F-stop. I got it to work by adding ";System.Photo.FNumber" at the end of the "InfoTip" string. I got this syntax for the f-stop from the "FullDetails" key just above "InfoTip." It looks like FullDetails key has a list of tags (72 on my system) that should be supported. – None – 2013-03-23T16:51:13.453

Your Windows appears to be of later version. In WinXP a dot in key value breaks the string. Can not use ;System.Photo.FNumber because with that string the tooltip cuts at that point and only the items before dot will show up. Also there is no "FullDetails" key other than in Windows Office related entries. I have also been searching for ways to do this, but your answer remains the best so far, though not working on WinXP. – Esa Paulasto – 2013-03-23T18:30:46.553

After finally getting access to XP, I have been unable to get extended EXIF for the InfoTip in Explorer. The only thing I can think of at this point this is not supported in XP. If I had to guess, this limitation is likely within shell32.dll and would require a custom shell extension to be written. That said, one thing you may try is updating Internet Explorer to the latest possible. Since pretty much everything you see in windows is nothing more than an Internet Explorer window being displayed, updating to the latest IE may bring along with it the ability to recognize the other EXIF tags. – None – 2013-03-25T18:35:26.533

For Windows 7 users you can right click on the file and choose properties, then go to the Details page, Microsoft have generously added all we need.

TonyE

Posted 2013-03-22T16:49:30.930

Reputation: 21

As you are already familiar with the properties of the registry, here is the complete list of possible properties in Windows. Remember that not all of them will return the expected values, you will need to install third-party handlers that can read the file information.

K-Lite comes with a package of codecs that can read almost all of this information for multimedia, but care must be taken when installing codec packs, it's a good idea to keep only one package and its basic configuration. If you want to organize your properties by subject or merge them into profiles like "Book", "Movie", etc., FileMeta can do this.

SorryForMyEN

Posted 2013-03-22T16:49:30.930

Reputation: 1