Help with Windows Picture and Fax viewer

Hello people of the Windows BBS. I have i problem that would like to address to my fellow members.

Everytime i would get a picture from the internet and save it to My pictures,
I get no prevew. It just shows the type of image file it is, but no preview of the actual picture i got off the web.

Everytime i double-click to enlarge the picture, i get this message saying "No preview availabe "

Does anyone here know anything about this?
Im sorry if this quesion has been asked before.
Appreciate the help. thanks.

 

Hello Dasiatic,

In the folder toolbar next to Edit > View, if you set that to thumbnails, what happens?

Regards - Charles

 

same thing. It only shows me what type of image file it is. It does'nt show me the picture itself.

 

Ok, what file type is it and does it happen on .jpg or .bmp's? That's the next question if it isn't one of those.

Regards - Charles

 

gifs and jpeg.

 

Before you try the re registering the.dll, if you know how to use reg edit, go to the following key to see if this key is there: HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\SystemFileAssociations\image\ShellEx\ContextMenuHandlers\ShellImagePreview

Before re registering the .dll file, create a manual System Restore point: Start menu > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > System Restore. Antually, do this before doing anything.

Then > Start > Run and type: regsvr32 shimgvw.dll > ok. See if that solves the problem.

Regards - Charles

 

yikes.....maybe i should change my computer experience to beginner.


im at the sytem restore page now. its telling me to input a description.
so I can just input xx/xx/xxxx and it will recognize it as a date?

im also confused about this 'key' you've mentioned earlier. im sorry. can you elaborate on that?

 

SR's description input by you is free form, so you can put anything in there that you want, just make it descriptive - "before fooling with the registry" for example . You don't have to put the date in there, the system will do that.

The object of this execise is to enable restoration to the where you started if something untowards happens.

That key enables Picture and Fax Viewer to view pictures, so curious to see whether that key is there or not. If you don't want to do that, that's fine, then just go on to re registering the .dll

Regards - Charles

 

thanks but....im a bit worried about the SR thing. i had past experiences with it. not very good ones. so what do you suggest i type in there?

and can you explain how can i re register the .dll? just go to run and type in
regsvr32 shimgvw.dll ?

 

Whatever problems you've had with SR, they certainly didn't stem from inputing descriptions. I just gave an example - you could put Mary had a little lamb in there for all it cares.

Copy and paste regsvr32 shimgvw.dll if you don't want to type it.

Regards - Charles

 

i tried it. a message popped up saying 'DllRegisterServer in shimgvw. dll succeeded'

But that did'nt help, i think. I minute ago i tried to download another picuture to test it. It still does'nt show me a preview.

 

We're going to have to see if that reg entry is there or not.

Start > Run > regedit > ok.

Keep expanding with the + sign - it's like drilling down into nested folders in explorer.

I'll be on and off - I'll check back later.

Regards - Charles

 

Dasiatic--

Can you clarify? Is the missing preview in My Pictures or in Windows Picture and Fax Viewer? Are you able to see the image when you click on the file in My Pictures?
If the problem is with Windows Picture and Fax Viewer, perhaps you should consider changing the association for .jpeg, .gif, .bmp, etc. so they will open in a different graphics viewer. For example, IE, MSPaint, Irfanview, etc.
Post back if you need help with the procedure.

 

alright.
when i open up My picutes, it would'nt show me the preview. when i double click on the picture file to enlarge it, it says "no preview avaiable "

 

Hi Dasiatic,

Jim's suggestion is the one you may want persue if you don't want to go into the Registry.

Forgot to ask some questions:

When did this start happening? Was it after MS updates by any chance?

Do you have a 3rd party image viewer? My assumption is that you do not, but that may be wrong.

If so, did you uninstall it?

Regards - Charles

 

well this happened ever since i first got my laptop.
3rd party image viewer? uh...i have 'paint' does that count? it came with my laptop.
but no, I dont have anything else.

oh yes, and how do i go about doing jim's suggestion?

 

Dasiatic--If you have had the problem since you got the laptop, changing the viewer may not help, but you have nothing to lose by trying the following.
You change association of a file type (.jpg, .jpeg, .gif, .txt, etc,) by finding one file of that type, right click, Open With. That should give you a drop down menu of programs Windows suggests, but also "Choose Program" if you want more choices. You then highlight the program you want to use, check the box at the bottom "Always use the selected program... "|OK.
Now files of that type will automatically open with that program . (If you do not like the result, you can change the association back to Windows Picture and Fax Viewer by going through the same procedure and choosing it.)
And you must go through the procedure once for each file type (both .jpg and .gif).
IE and MSPaint will open the image files you are interested in. However, you can do almost no manipulation of the image with IE. That is no problem if all you want to do is Save the file to My Pictures. IE will do that. MSPaint will Save and permit some image manipulation before saving. Irfanview (free at www.irfanview.com) will permit more manipulation.
The procedure for association described above will work with all these graphic viewer programs.

P.S.

You did not reply to that, so I do not know if the problem is limited to not seeing the preview, or whether you cannot save the image, itself, using WPFV.

 

yeah, so it's only previewing the image that is the problem. i have no problem saving it.

but thanks for your help though. I'll try it out right away.

 

nope. sorry. did'nt work.
I downloaded the program, and tried the "Choose Program" method you mentioned. the only difference i see is that everytime i open up My pictures, i see Irfanview's icon on the thumbnails, replacing my default one.

Everytime i click on the picture to see it, the program says " the file so and so is a ART file with incorrect extension ! "

then it says "Please note: Irfanview cant read ART files! "

 

This is getting really strange.

Just to make sure that the file extensions are showing:

Bring up the Drive > Tools (at the top) > Folder Options > View tab > scroll down to and if checked: un check "Hide extensions for known file types ".

For whatever it's worth: http://filext.com/ List of file extensions and what creates them.

See you in the morning - Charles