Vista: All your pictures are belong to us!!

[Quakindude]

I've worked with Vista on and off for the last two months. I've now given up on it completely. The first month saw a few smallish problems, one of them requiring me to reinstall the OS. Then, I made the huge mistake of opening up a lot, about 2GB worth, of pictures and changing their names from 30202 to names that make sense. These pictures are stored on my external HDD and I share this drive between my XP Pro and Vista drives. Well, after editing the names in Vista, I could no longer access them in XP Pro. Unsupported Format or Corrupt Image error even though they are all .jpg's.

So in looking around the Internet, I find out this info. Someone on another forum I frequent had experienced the problems as well. So it isn't just me.

What this all boils down to is this. Vista is taking the standardized header format that most companies have been using for years and converting it to Microsoft's own, proprietary EXIF format which renders all the programs I've tried incapable of opening the damn pictures in Windows XP.

Here's a blurb from Microshaft:

Microsoft is currently working to inform hardware developers and software developers about this new feature. Microsoft is working to encourage hardware developers and software developers to update their tools. Programs must also be updated to adjust for the offset. Therefore, existing programs that read Maker Note tags cannot read the Maker Note tag information in files that are edited by Windows Vista Photo Gallery.

For more information about the software for a digital camera, contact the manufacturer of the digital camera.

So essentially, Microsoft is telling the world that since they have now added this "feature" to Vista, ALL YOUR PICS ARE BELONG TO US! This is total BS. And they have the gall to tell their customers to contact their camera manufacturers and get them to change THEIR method of tagging images instead of MS removing this jacked up "feature."

So now, since Vista is so friggin buggy and crash prone I've formatted the drive it was on, I have 2GB of family reunion/Christmas/Birthday pictures I can no longer access. Wonderful.

Screw you Microsoft. This guy will be looking into Linux once I get back into my house.

[Yellowhello]

Screw you Microsoft. This guy will be looking into Linux once I get back into my house.

Haha, M$ just got pwned!!!! Tells how it goes.

But, ya, MS is pretty full of themselves. They better start listening to the customers or even the mighty 700-pound software behemoth can fall.

Isn't there a program to convert MS's format to, say, JPEG?

[qazwsx]

that just ain't nice. Im going to hold off getting vista for as long as I can.

[stinger608]

OMFG Tom that is complete bullsh1t!!!!!!
Just who the hell does M$ think they are

I have a rig that I have been testing Vista on, but thank god I have never put pictures on it! I just haven't felt comfortable enough to make the complete transition to Vista, and this just brings it home

Question: Can you re-convert the pictures to just a JPG format???

[Death_blooms]

I hope so ive just gone form vista to xp and i am yet to check the jpgs

UPDATE
They work fine for me. What version of vista you got and what version of XP?
ive got vista ultimate and xp pro with SP2

[screwballl]

thank you.... this is another of many reasons why I continue to tell people to NOT make the jump and stick with XP and/or linux

[Death_blooms]

Originally Posted by screwballl

thank you.... this is another of many reasons why I continue to tell people to NOT make the jump and stick with XP and/or linux

When i put it on my dads pc there were no drivers for his scanner or camera so he was angry. But like I said before this was not a problem

[Quakindude]

Originally Posted by Death_blooms

I hope so ive just gone form vista to xp and i am yet to check the jpgs

UPDATE
They work fine for me. What version of vista you got and what version of XP?
ive got vista ultimate and xp pro with SP2

I have XP Pro and Vista Home Premium.

It only affects the pictures if you use Vista's Gallery viewer and you change any of the properties. If all you did was look at the pics, then there are no issues.

[gvblake22]

WOW Tom, that is a serious bummer. A very lame move on Microsoft's part indeed. They just make a step closer to taking over the world with every new product release don't they!

I'm sure there's got to be some workaround to get them converted back to a standard format. Maybe try opening them in a different photo editing software in Vista (like the GIMP or Photoshop) and save them as a different format (like .PNG or .TIFF)?

[Lead Head]

This is interesting, I open a photo in Photo Gallery, I edited the colors a bit, then saved it. Then it opened fine under Photo Shop. I was still under vista though, but I don't think OS type would affect individual programs.