Where is Windows Picture and Fax viewer hiding?

[Phil50Baer]

JMcBride said: Open a shortcut on your desktop and ..."send it to
"rundll32.exe C:\WINDOWS\system32\shimgvw.dll,ImageView_Fullscre en". I then copy and pasted this into the Start | Run command and it started a blank version of the viewer. Put it in a shortcut and you are good to go." Then he said to drag and drop the jpg to the short cut.

I tried what he said but it didn't work because "View_Fullscreen" in his message was spelled incorrectly. (I think the forum wrapped the word and then when it got unwrapped there was an extra space. "View_Fullscreen" is the correct spelling. As soon as I fixed this, the shortcut worked.

The other mistake I made was to drag a file to the shortcut. The correct procedure is to open the program first and THEN drag the picture to the windows and fax viewer. I should have known better.

The interesting thing is that after I did this the first time, when I right clicked on the jpg file, the Windows and Fax viewer showed up there. It hadn't shown up before! Go figure.

Anyway thanks JMcBride.

Phil50Baer

[Kevin_gibson]

Windows picture and fax view is exatly what it says, it's part of the Windows setup and therefor not an external application that you can install and uninstall.

By default, Windows XP opens all picture files (gif,jpg,...) with the included Windows Picture and Fax Viewer no matter what other picture viewers you have installed.

To reenable Picture and Fax viewer again

Start - Run - regsvr32 shimgvw.dll

[vkaryl]

Originally Posted by Kevin_gibson

Windows picture and fax view is exatly what it says, it's part of the Windows setup and therefor not an external application that you can install and uninstall.

By default, Windows XP opens all picture files (gif,jpg,...) with the included Windows Picture and Fax Viewer no matter what other picture viewers you have installed.

To reenable Picture and Fax viewer again

Start - Run - regsvr32 shimgvw.dll

Thanks for this Kevin_gibson. However, what I'm finding is that even though I've "registered" this through the Run command and it tells me "successful", I still can't get graphics attached to emails to open in anything but Microsoft Photo Editor!

Situation: reformat/reinstall of XP SP2 two weeks ago due to corrupted files in the WMI package. I use Thunderbird 1.5.0.14 as my email client and Firefox as browser. In FF there's a handy option to select which application runs various sorts of files, but T'bird hasn't got the same (I will be suggesting that addition however!)

So while I now have the Windows Picture and Fax Viewer available when right-clicking on graphics files as well as when double-clicking from within the Explorer interface, I'm still unable to figure out how to get the Microsoft Photo Editor option out of the loop for email attachments.

Would you have any ideas on that?

[cyberbear]

Q. Where do I find Windows Picture and Fax Viewer?
Q. How do I Make Windows Picture and Fax Viewer open pictures as my default program?

The Answer below is in regards to a couple of comments I read on here on the the above questions.

I am computer technician/engineer and do all my own work on my computer and help my friends. Ironically, I don't have a computer job at this time.(.LOL) as a result of the schools marketing which flooded the workforce with too many techs in Calif. Thanks to Devry...and others.

Anyway, I came here find the answer to this very question; "Where to find the Fax Veiwer?, as I see it working in Libraries around me. I know about Infanview, but didn't want to install it. After reading a few comments on here, the idea came to me. The answer my be posted already, but this is what I did and it works.

I lurked about and sure enough, the fax veiwer is in the windows system32 folder (C:\WINDOWS\System32\shimgvw.dll), but it is a DLL file.

I have seen some non exe files run before so I tried to run it but Not successful. Being that I play around with the registry and remember write.exe is also executed in some places as wordpad in the system registry, my idea has landed as to what the guy in here wants and that is, "To assign the fax viewer to a jpeg..etc.."

Keeping in mind two ways to do this, the simplest of the two is to get it to show up in the openwith menu.. and to do this, you need to find what windows calls it in the registry. So, guess what? It's called "Windows Picture and Fax Viewer". Now isn't that just handy dandy.. Usually, it's a different word or shortened. I guess I saved you all the trouble searching and analyzing this in regedit, so now what, right?

Inside the registry, I remembered the * (asterisk) has the openwith list).
The location is at :
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\OpenWithList

After you go here, then create a new key along with the other items that you see. Right mouse click on "openwithlist" and choose NEW>KEY. Make the key name: Windows Picture and Fax Viewer

If you did this correctly, your new key should be below the other programs in the same column. Typically notepad...is usually one of them.

Now open your folder on your harddrive with the jpeg or gif in it, and click the mouse shortcut button (right) and do an "open with" and you should see Windows Picture and FAX VIEWER there. Now pick "Choose Program" at the bottom and when the window opens follow the typically routine by selecing the Windows Picture and Fax Viewer, and and then click the box at the bottom " Always use selected program..etc." Now you are finished. The image will open up.

And now if you click a picture, JPEG, it should open up. it does for me. I tested it.

oh... by the way, the guy on here that mentions the shortcut that says VIEW when you go to open a picture, well in XP it says PREVIEW to open it up with the fax viewer. It really throws people off when people write up stuff and don't use the exact menu words or part of them that match it. . I find this a problem in windows help files/articles all the time...
Thanks people for your comments about the files, although they didn't fix the problem, it was enough to help me make it work for me..

netverse@yahoo.com

[moechetti]

i had that same problem trying to find it.i did what a lot of the people said do but no luck. then i opened the task manager click new task. Then in the create new task box type in windows picture and fax viewer, then click ok. and windows will open it for you to use as your default for pictures etc.

[Cribrad]

Not sure this is entirely relevant, but in order to default Windows Picture and Fax Viewer as the program to open image files you need to:

1. Open up Folder Options in the Control Panel.
2. Go to the 'File Types' tab.
3. For each type of image file you want to open with Windows Picture and Fax Viewer you must:
- Find the file type in the pane.
- Select 'Change...' in the 'Opens with' section.
- Select 'Windows Picture and Fax Viewer' and click on 'OK'.
4. Repeat for every other image file type you want to apply the property to.
5. If 'Windows Picture and Fax Viewer' is not in the list you will not be able to browse for it since it is not a whole excecutable, instead:
- Select 'Advanced' in the File Types tab.
- Double-click on the option 'open'.
- In the box with 'Application used to perform action:' over it paste 'rundll32.exe C:\WINDOWS\system32\shimgvw.dll,ImageView_Fullscre en %1' (without the 's).
- Check the checkbox to 'Use DDE' and in the box that says 'Application:' over it paste 'shimgvw' (without the 's).
- In the box that has 'Topic:' written over it paste 'System' (without the 's).
- Click on 'OK' and then 'OK' again.
6. Repeat that for all the image file types you want to have open automatically with Windows Picture and Fax Viewer.

NOTE: This is probably a lengthy procedure if you have many image file types to change but it doesn't require any manual editing of the registry and is completely safe as long as you do this and not something else. I know this works with XP but I don't know about other Windows OSs as I've never done it with them (I can't even remember if other Windows OSs have it).

I hope I have been helpful with this topic.

[LadyDi]

I know this is an old subject but I just had a problem with WPFV and hope you can help me solve it.

When I used to insert my Sony digital camera memory stick, a frame/box that said Windows Picture & Fax Viewer would open and ask me what I wanted Windows to do with pics ie: copy to folder, view pics, view slideshow, etc. This no longer comes up and makes it more difficult to make the actions I want to happen. The frame is similar to the one that opens when I place a CD in my CD/DVD player: box says: Audio CD (E) and then asks what I want Windows to do, etc. It still comes up but not the one for the memory stick.

Would like to figure out how to restore this frame/box for use with the memory stick once again.

Any help is appreciated.

LadyDi

[Michel Marcules]

My problem is when I view graphics and images in Windows Picture and Fax Viewer, if I then click on the left or right buttons at the bottom of the page, I will view images from long ago that I no longer want. I realize that I can delete each one individually, but their are 100's of them and I want to delete them all at once. Is their a way to do this?

Thank you

[DMXOnline]

I think this will help Click

[Vangeli21]

jmcbride you are a fricken legend! your tip worked perfectly although some of the instructions i found a ill difficult as i am a major noob lol. But now i can open jpegs in WPF as something had stuffed up earlier and it wasn't working.

So thank you once again!

[michael_durham]

You can also launch a specific document from the command line if you go one step further and add an actual path after the path to the rundll and shimgvw..

Such as:
C:\WINDOWS\system32\rundll32.exe c:\windows\system32\shimgvw.dll,ImageView_Fullscre en c:\200906090000005.tif