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Users who were upgraded to Office 2016 have discovered they can’t preview Excel files in Outlook’s reading pane. When they select an Excel attachment, they receive the following error message:
This file cannot be previewed because there is no previewer installed for it.
This is due to an incorrect registry entry for the preview handler. While this will be fixed in a future update, you can fix it now by adding the following values to the registry.
The correct registry keys for a click to run installation (which covers most users) are:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\ClickToRun\REGISTRY\MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\PreviewHandlers
REG_SZ: {21E17C2F-AD3A-4b89-841F-09CFE02D16B7}
Value: Microsoft Visio previewer
REG_SZ: {65235197-874B-4A07-BDC5-E65EA825B718}
Value: Microsoft PowerPoint previewer
REG_SZ: {84F66100-FF7C-4fb4-B0C0-02CD7FB668FE}
Value: Microsoft Word previewer
REG_SZ: {00020827-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}
Value: Microsoft Excel Previewer
Or, just run this registry file to add the values to your registry.
Volume license / MSI
If you are using the volume license "MSI" or installed Office using the version supplied in an MSDN subscription, the keys you need to change are as follows.
If you use 64bit Windows & 32bit Office, the key is
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\PreviewHandlers
If your Windows and Office are both 32 or both 64bit, use this key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\PreviewHandlers
The string values remain the same for both.
REG_SZ: {21E17C2F-AD3A-4b89-841F-09CFE02D16B7}
Value: Microsoft Visio previewer
REG_SZ: {65235197-874B-4A07-BDC5-E65EA825B718}
Value: Microsoft PowerPoint previewer
REG_SZ: {84F66100-FF7C-4fb4-B0C0-02CD7FB668FE}
Value: Microsoft Word previewer
REG_SZ: {00020827-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}
Value: Microsoft Excel Previewer
Published September 30, 2015. Last updated on June 5, 2017.
I didn't notice any discrepancy in the registry editor, so I repaired my office installation in control panel > Programs and Features. After repairing all previews are working again. Not very convenient, but glad there was a fix that worked for me.
Adjusting the registry entry as explained above and restarting Outlook solved the problem. Thanks, Red.
I also had to make adjustment to
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionPreviewHandlers]
removing
"{00020827-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}"=hex(2):40,00,25,00,43,00,6f,00,6d,00,
6d,00,6f,00,6e,00,50,00,72,00,6f,00,67,00,72,00,61,00,6d,00,46,00,69,00,6c,
00,65,00,73,00,25,00,5c,00,4d,00,69,00,63,00,72,00,6f,00,73,00,6f,00,66,00,
74,00,20,00,53,00,68,00,61,00,72,00,65,00,64,00,5c,00,4f,00,66,00,66,00,69,
00,63,00,65,00,31,00,36,00,5c,00,6f,00,72,00,65,00,67,00,72,00,65,00,73,00,
2e,00,64,00,6c,00,6c,00,2c,00,2d,00,34,00,30,00,33,00,00,00
and placing
"{00020827-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}"="Microsoft Excel Previewer"
I went ahead and re-upgraded to Office 2016, triple checked ALL of the "Preview Handlers" settings (all three places shown above) and ALL WERE AS REQUIRED, but still no luck. The PDF preview handler works but none of the others. Please, can anyone suggest a possible fix?
PDF is installed by the pdf application you use, not office. Check the path to outlook.exe then try the fix again.
I can't get the previewers to work at all. Windows 10 pro, Office 2013 (went back to this when 2016 wouldn't work) 32 Bit. I corrected the "Volume License/MSI" vakyes because I obtained a 5 copy license for Office from school, so I thought I might have a volume license copy, but no help there. When I try to run the "Run this registry file" link, it simply responds with a web page showing the details of the fix. When I tried to apply the fix manually I got stopped at "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftOffice", because there's no "click to run" (and there… Read more »
Best way to know which version you have is to check the path to outlook.exe - if its in the root path C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office
15\root\Office15, its Click to run. The traditional path is the MSI version C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office 15\Office15
>> When I try to run the "Run this registry file" link, it simply responds with a web page showing the details of the fix.
Which browser are you using? Try right clicking on the file and choosing Save as or the equilivent. It might save with a txt file extension, if so you'll need to change it to .reg.