How does thumbnail preview in Ubuntu differ from that of Windows? [closed]

Posted by Forbidden Overseer on Ask Ubuntu See other posts from Ask Ubuntu or by Forbidden Overseer
Published on 2012-06-16T19:26:18Z Indexed on 2012/06/16 21:23 UTC
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Possible Duplicate:
How does Ubuntu know what file type a file without extension is

I thought this question might get a better response in AskUbuntu, as it seems to have more to do with Ubuntu than Windows at a glance.

Let's say I have a foo.mkv file. Thumbnail previews work in both Windows 7 and Ubuntu.

When I change the filename to anything random like foo.bar or when I remove the extension itself (making it just foo), Nautilus shows thumbnails normally like if it can recognize what type of files they are - without looking at file extension.

This however, doesn't happen in Windows 7. Windows starts asking me things like which application I want to use to open that file as soon as I remove file extension (forget thumbnails...) etc.

So, How does this thumbnail preview work in Windows 7 and Ubuntu? What makes Ubuntu recognize files "out of the box" unlike Windows 7?

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