Anyone who has been using Windows for a long time may well remember an outrageously useful utility that went by the name of Quick View Plus. As you might be able to guess from the name, this was a tool for quickly previewing files without the need to open them in their associated application – so you could preview an image without launching a slow, memory-hungry image editor, or a Word document without having to wait for Word to load.

Mac users are already in the very happy position of having the Quick Look function baked into macOS, but these day Windows fans have to look to third-party utilities to gain this sort of functionality. One such tool is WinQuickLook.

While computers are now faster than ever and – for the most part – software is far more efficiently coded for swift launch times, it can still be a pain having to wait for a large application to open just so you can check the contents of a file. Windows can help out by previewing various types of image, but WinQuickLook goes much further.

Once install, the program runs quietly in the background. When you would like to preview a file, just select it in Explorer or on the desktop and hit the spacebar. A preview window will pop into view showing the contents of the files. The range of supported files types is impressive. You can preview everything from spreadsheets and text-based documents, to images and even videos and music.

If you have opted to preview an audio or video file, you can skip back and forth through playback, and you can scroll your way through other types of file. If you are using WinQuickLook to help quickly identify a file before opening it in its associated application, you'll be pleased to find that there is a link to open said application from within the preview window. The integration of the program into Windows is neat, and the performance is pleasingly fast – much faster than opening several big applications.

The great news is that the app is not only useful, but also incredibly cheap, with a license that valid for use on up to ten computers. There is even an unlimited trial version that will not expire – but the developer would appreciate people purchasing it.