Bug in Windows Photo Gallery

Not sure how to submit this to Microsoft, so I'll post it here.

I was having an issue with Windows Photo Gallery in Vista SP1. When I would
double-click on an image file in one particular directory, nothing would
happen. I could open images in other folders just fine, and I could open
images in that particular folder using other programs just as Paint. If I
copied an image from that folder to another, it would open correctly in Photo
Gallery.

I finally managed to find the cause of the problem, an Internet shortcut in
the same folder. If I removed it from the folder, the images would open
correctly again. When I moved the link back, the problem would occur again.
Any folder into which I would put the shortcut would become unable to open
images in Windows Photo Gallery.

The only thing that was unusual about the shortcut was that the URL was
extremely long, a Google Maps link. The specific link was
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=s+oakl...1&source=embed

I tried editing the shortcut to make the URL shorter, and the problem went
away. When I recreated the shortcut with a long URL, the problem reoccured.
I have tried this with other addresses, though I haven't tried to determine
the exact length of URL that causes a problem.

To summarize: In Vista, SP1, if a folder contains images and an Internet
Shortcut to a long URL, Windows Photo Gallery will fail to open images within
that folder. The problem is reproduceable.

Thanks for the info...you can share it with
Microsoft at the following links:

Send Feedback for Windows Live Photo Gallery
https://feedback.live.com/eform.aspx...y=photogallery

Providing Feedback to Microsoft
http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/execmail/feedback.mspx

Upload Your Feedback To Microsoft
http://www.papajohn.org/AboutMovieMaker.html
(scroll to bottom of page)

--

John Inzer
Digital Media MVP

Notice
This is not tech support
I am a volunteer

Solutions that work for
me may not work for you

Proceed at your own risk

=================================

Captain Packrat wrote:
> Not sure how to submit this to Microsoft, so I'll post it here.
>
> I was having an issue with Windows Photo Gallery in Vista SP1. When
> I would double-click on an image file in one particular directory,
> nothing would happen. I could open images in other folders just
> fine, and I could open images in that particular folder using other
> programs just as Paint. If I copied an image from that folder to
> another, it would open correctly in Photo Gallery.
>
> I finally managed to find the cause of the problem, an Internet
> shortcut in the same folder. If I removed it from the folder, the
> images would open correctly again. When I moved the link back, the
> problem would occur again. Any folder into which I would put the
> shortcut would become unable to open images in Windows Photo Gallery.
>
> The only thing that was unusual about the shortcut was that the URL
> was extremely long, a Google Maps link. The specific link was
> http://maps.google.com/maps?q=s+oakl...1&source=embed
>
> I tried editing the shortcut to make the URL shorter, and the problem
> went away. When I recreated the shortcut with a long URL, the
> problem reoccured. I have tried this with other addresses, though I
> haven't tried to determine the exact length of URL that causes a
> problem.
>
> To summarize: In Vista, SP1, if a folder contains images and an
> Internet Shortcut to a long URL, Windows Photo Gallery will fail to
> open images within that folder. The problem is reproduceable.

[BirdOPrey5]

Thank you for posting this... I was having the same problem- something that would have drove me crazy since the file I was trying to open was on the desktop.

I ended up having to delete a shortcut to superpages.com and it started working again.

Now it seems like it won't view GIF files anymore... To be honest I'm not sure if it worked on Vista before SP1 but I *know* you can view GIF files in Windows Picture & Fax viewer on XP.