Comments on: Enabling (Free!) DNG Support in FastPictureViewer and Windows Live Photo Gallery on Windows XP

By: Matt

Matt — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 13:28:55 +0000

@Mike, I can understand how people would feel this way. As I’ve just finished completely moving to Windows 7 the operating system support change isn’t an issue for me but it will be for others.

Codec support was added to XP via a later .net update. In Vista it was supported by the OS. In Windows 7 I’ve been informed the results are finally stable. I have been told they tried to get the Vista codec working (and i believe them) but in the long run cut their losses and dropped Vista support. I am curious what was the Achilles heel that necessitated this. A guess would be the international support (e.g. Double byte Asian characters) but I have no data to back that up. I will see if I can find out why.

Others have developed paid DNG codecs. I am wondering how the Adobe Labs equivalent compares with these.

By: Mike

Mike — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 16:21:24 +0000

Really disappointed by the lack of Adobe support for VIABLE operating systems that are used everyday by millions of users (currently Adobe has already abandoned support for Vista as well). I can not and will not buy a new PC every two years to support OS bloat. If I cannot find an Adobe solution that will run on my XP system I will look elsewhere, if DNG really is the answer it should be available for XP, I suspect that Adobe will find, sometime in the near future, that supporting a free project is just not worth their time and they will just walk away. Screwing everybody that bought into the RAW format for the rest of us hype.

By: Robbie

Robbie — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 23:57:06 +0000

A free script for enabling the viewing of DNG files in Windows Explorer for Vista and Windows 7 64 bit systems is available from Olli’s DNG Photo tools at http://www.visualbakery.com/Tools/PhotoTools.aspx
It works great for me. Images can still not be viewed in Windows Photo Gallery, but I use Lightroom now so that is not a problem for me.
I find it really helps to be able to use the new features in Windows 7 Explorer for viewing photos for my DNG files.

By: Matt

Matt — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 13:21:26 +0000

@Caroline, Hadn't even thought of trying this tip since I upgraded to Windows 7. I would really have hoped Adobe would have refreshed the installer by now but for whatever reason this hasn't happened. Why not vote for the feature request and see if we can make this happen?

By: Caroline (Frogmum)

Caroline (Frogmum) — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 16:50:48 +0000

This solution so NEARLY works for me in Windows7 ~ it installed the Adobe codec fine, and the thumbnails now look like images in Windows Photo Gallery now (rather than PS symbols), but I still can’t see the pictures ~ so near, yet so far

By: Matt

Matt — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 00:24:52 +0000

@Hans, Thanks for providing that link to an alternate utility to perform the same “remove OS check” step. Much appreciated.

By: Hans

Hans — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 15:55:28 +0000

Matt, I see your point and agree with you.
Meanwhile I searched the net and found a “Remove Installer OS Check” utility that works as well. (http://lazynetworkadmin.com/content/view/20/1/)
If people were only using some sort of a license like “Creative Commons” (http://creativecommons.org/“) more often, then all others (incl. search engines) would know what they’re allowed to do with a certain digital item.
Glad to see that this site IS making use of the Creative Commons license options.

However, the above mentioned solution worked fine for me.

Thank you for providing the information.

By: Matt

Matt — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 13:03:21 +0000

@Hans, Removechk is not my code so where it is hosted is not my choice, unless I wanted to take it as my own and I wasn't comfortable doing that. I'm a little disappointed that Adobe hasn't made a final DNG codec available that would also work on Windows XP. In the interim the codec pack available here seems a good choice though there is a $9.99 USD price tag attached (as at 6 August, 2010).

By: Hans

Hans — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 22:42:38 +0000

One needs to register to access the script ‘Remove Installer OS Check’ (removechk.zip).
Searching the Net for ‘removechk.zip’ leads to dead links where this file has been removed.

If you really want to make this file available to a broader audience, why not make it available without registration at some open web-site?

If Adobe is serious about DNG then it should become public.
My suspicion is that Adobe might some day tell us DNGer that to view our images we’d need to buy this or that software from them.

By: Matt

Matt — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 23:32:34 +0000

@Robbie, I’m glad you have found a solution for your tethering requirements. I need to write a followup tethering post to include FastPictureViewer, Lightroom 3 and the various Nikon SDK based tethering options that have cropped up since this original post.

Personally I think that it is Nikon that should be resolving the omission of a free tethering solution. By publishing an SDK they have allowed third parties to fill this gap for users with newer cameras. Unfortunately users with old cameras are still left out in the cold and I’d be surprised if Nikon actually does something to resolve this issue at this late stage in the product lifecycle.

@Russ, I’ll add ControlMyNikon to the list of software to be reviewed in the followup article. Thanks for pointing it out!