[Solved]Win 7 Photo Viewer - victim of Dec. MS patches?

I'd posted this question over at the avast forums a couple of weeks ago, but not a single reply so far. So I thought maybe I'd have better luck here.

I've got JPG files associated with the Win Photo Viewer, which I think is the default anyway. As of a few weeks ago, it's taking the viewer forever to load images ... I should add that while I've got the zoom-to-fit option on, I generally resize the image to more or less fit the available screen, so file sizes are typically in the 25-60K range and the zoom feature should have little or no work to do. No problems with other image formats, by the way, or with videos (the latter usually thru the VLC player), so I don't think the graphics controller is involved.

Given the timing, I wonder if this is somehow tied into the MS Update patch last month which took care of that zero-day vulnerability involving TIFFs. I can't find anything at MS covering this. Am I stuck with it, or can anyone suggest a fix (other than uninstalling that patch, of course)?

If pertinent, my adaptor is an AMD Radeon HD 6450A which came with the system, about a year old -- other system info is in my sig. Thanks and best.

 

Re: Win 7 Photo Viewer - victim of Dec. MS patches?

Thanks, Ron. I did (after posting) download the newly updated Catalyst Control package, from Dec. 2013, all 200+ megs of it (thank heaven for DSL), but while installing went smoothly enough, it didn't improve anything. Guess it might well be that patch after all, and hopefully MS will fine-tune it and issue a new version.

 

Re: Win 7 Photo Viewer - victim of Dec. MS patches?

Thanks for that link, Ron. I ran the fix-it in its check-and-advise mode, and it reported no problems found so fix-it not applied. Ain't modern technology marvelous?! Thanks anyway, guess I'm stuck with it unless and until others report the same experience. Guess we can call this a closed topic, at least for now.

 

Re: Win 7 Photo Viewer - victim of Dec. MS patches?

I thought Windows Photo Viewer and Windows Live Photo Gallery were two different things...

The following applies to Win 7 - not sure about others:

If you calibrate your display using Window's built in facility, then it can result in Windows Photo Viewer taking a long time to display images.

Not sure if this is the cause of your issue or not, but I had a similar problem (and happen to have the same video card).

As I didn't want to uncalibrate my display, I chose to use Windows Live Photo Gallery instead...

 

Re: Win 7 Photo Viewer - victim of Dec. MS patches?

Thanks, taotoo -- yes, they're separate (and not particularly similar) applications. The Photo Viewer is included in the Home Premium version, but the Gallery is part of the Windows Live ("Essentials") account package and needs downloaded separately plus requires registering an account, which I've never bothered with before.

I did do all that to get and play with a copy, but I'm not thrilled with it and probably won't keep it. My biggest objection is that it seems to be highly incompatible with my current folder sub-tree for image files, insisting on using its Library setup instead, plus when doing a slideshow none of the "modes" available are plain and simple, all involving some kind of fancy transition (e.g., pan & scan, or fade out/in) from one image to the next.

I'll probably go back to my old arrangement, using Paint.NET for editing and the Photo Viewer for viewing. In the latter, if I set slideshow speed to medium or slow, there's no noticeable delay with images after the first one. As for editing, Paint.net is quite handy with one exception, there's no convenient way to adjust color balance, so I stick with cropping, resizing, and adjusting brightness and contrast.

I`m curious about your contention that the Viewer is notoriously slow ... I never had any problems with it until about a month ago. Very suspicious, to me anyway, that it started just about when I did the Dec. updates, which included that TIFF-related patch, although there`s always the remote chance that it was just a freak coincidence of timing.

Thanks again, and best,
Mike

 

Re: Win 7 Photo Viewer - victim of Dec. MS patches?

AFAIK it's only slow if you calibrate your screen - might you have done so?

 

Re: Win 7 Photo Viewer - victim of Dec. MS patches?

If selecting "zoom to fit" is considered calibrating, then yes, but I did that when first installed, about a year ago. I haven't touched any other settings, and as I've noted several times I'm surprised this problem has only recently appeared.

 

Re: Win 7 Photo Viewer - victim of Dec. MS patches?

You might check Post 4 at the link below - if you have a display profile, deleting it might help.

http://www.sevenforums.com/music-pi...ws-photo-viewer-insanely-slow.html#post911744

 

Re: Win 7 Photo Viewer - victim of Dec. MS patches?

Many thanks, taotoo ... while I sure don't remember setting it up, by following the instructions there, I did find a profile with "calibrated" in its name, deleted it, and the Photo Viewer is back to normal, didn't even require a reboot.

That calibration must have been set up fairly recently -- since I don't remember doing it, I wonder if some newly installed game or other app did that. Anyway, it's gone now, thanks again.

 

Re: Win 7 Photo Viewer - victim of Dec. MS patches?

One last, essentially unrelated question. Over at the avast forums, the appropriate action at this point would be to go back to my original post and edit the topic title to include "[Solved]" or the like, which then carries over to all replies and to the forum's topic listing. That doesn't seem to work here -- did I miss something, or is there another way to accomplish that here?