file formats

I have a number of pictures saved in my documents/my pictures (.jpg & .gif) that I cannot open to use in any program. I get a message stating "incorrect file format" or "unable to open file ". I have Infraview installed to open these with, but it isn't working. . Other pictures of the same type work fine. . ??? Also, what is an orphan file? Thanks to all for any help.

 

There are two possible reasons (that I can think of) why you are getting the problems with the gifs and jpgs.
One is that the files were downloaded from somewhere and the download did not complete entirely leaving the files truncated, which means your viewer can't make sense of them.
The other problem could be that the files actually are other filetypes but given the extension jpg/gif by mistake thinking they were actually image files. (example downloading a zipped wallpaper from a site and not unpacking it, just saving it as a jpg file directly)

Regarding orpaned files - this description is taken from a Mac site, but it holds equally true for PC's: "The term orphaned file refers to a file created by an application which is no longer available on your disk. "
Ie. the program which you used to create or view a file has been uninstalled and the file type settings have not been transferred to another program to handle.

HTH

 

Thanks so much Laage!

 

Laage,

Good info that you provided to ispy and the rest of us. Thought I would add the following bit of information about Irfanview. Irfanview will offer to rename an incorrectly assigned picture file extention and does so quite well. Now all we need is a utility that will repair truncated files!