Icaros is a free FFmpeg-powered tool which extends Windows Explorer’s thumbnail support to just about any video format.

The package can produce cover art thumbnails for Mkv, Flac, Ape, and Mpc files, and provides extended Windows Explorer properties for Mkv, Flv, Ogm, Ogv, Ogg, Flac, Ape, and Mpc.

Icaros was updated last month with the addition of its own cache, speeding up thumbnail display and ensuring you won’t be affected if Explorer deletes its own cache.

Thumbnailing is now smarter and more reliable. The program can auto-rotate MP4 and MOV thumbnails to match file metadata, and it’s better at thumbnailing incomplete and unseekable files.

The new-look interface gives better control over file types and settings

The thumbnail frame may now be selected using a timestamp (x milliseconds into the file) or a percentage value (25% by default).

There are many new ways to add and control the thumbnail types you’d like Icaros to manage, from simple drag and drop to in-depth exploration in the redesigned settings pages.

Icaros also has a completely new DPI-aware interface which both looks better and seems easier to use.

If you’d like to try it out, there’s no adware or annoying dependencies to get in your way (beyond .NET 4.0).

The program’s features aren’t all activated by default, though, so we’d recommend you investigate the Settings screen first, just to check out what you can do.

Icaros is a free tool for Windows XP and later.