Jason Dunn
02-14-2007, 02:00 PM
I had heard about a feature in Windows Photo Gallery (a bundled Vista application) that would offer the user a download to allow RAW files to be read inside the application. Over this past weekend I spent most of my time ripping apart my computers and swapping parts to give each rig what it needed to run Vista properly. Lots of installing, more than a little cursing. After using FolderShare to sync up my documents, folders, and music I fired up Windows Photo Gallery and let it scan my photos. Side rant: it scans photos much more slowly than Picasa does, it frequently hangs on the scanning for no reason, and it doesn't scan ahead for thumbnails. The last one is really a show-stopper for me. Even on a system with a fast AMD X2 5000+ CPU, generating a screen full of thumbnail images takes 5 or so seconds. Why not read ahead and render all the thumbnails so the user doesn't have to wait? Unimpressive.
But back to my main point: when Windows Photo Gallery (WPG? Nah, that sucks. Gallery?) got to my RAW files, it offered up this helpful window:
http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/windows-gallery-RAW-warning.gif
Sure I'll get the update! I was thinking it was pretty slick, but instead of kicking off a nice direct download, it loaded up two different IE browser windows. The first was to this Nikon page that was a 404 Not Found (http://www.nikonimglib.com/nefcodec/index.html.en). Wow, great experience there. I tried removing the .en on the the end of the URL, but that just brought me to this page (http://www.nikonimglib.com/nefcodec/index.html) that proclaimed the Nikon RAW Codec Download was not yet available yet. Sure it is! I remember seeing it a few weeks ago on one of my other machines. Or maybe they pulled it (http://blogs.msdn.com/pix/archive/2007/01/30/nikon-raw-codec-issues.aspx). Either way, give us some sort of explanation - you can't have a smart, auto-updating application then allow it to break so quickly.
Canon users aren't any better off - the other browser window it opened up was to this Windows File Association page (http://shell.windows.com/fileassoc/0409/xml/redir.asp?EXT=crw). Wow. Could Microsoft do anything more unfriendly? When you click on the Canon link, you get taken to a page (http://shell.windows.com/fileassoc/coming_soon.htm) that says "coming soon".
This experience is ugly from head to toe - why is Microsoft allowing this to go off the tracks so quickly after Vista's launch? Is everyone on post-launch vacation?
But back to my main point: when Windows Photo Gallery (WPG? Nah, that sucks. Gallery?) got to my RAW files, it offered up this helpful window:
http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/windows-gallery-RAW-warning.gif
Sure I'll get the update! I was thinking it was pretty slick, but instead of kicking off a nice direct download, it loaded up two different IE browser windows. The first was to this Nikon page that was a 404 Not Found (http://www.nikonimglib.com/nefcodec/index.html.en). Wow, great experience there. I tried removing the .en on the the end of the URL, but that just brought me to this page (http://www.nikonimglib.com/nefcodec/index.html) that proclaimed the Nikon RAW Codec Download was not yet available yet. Sure it is! I remember seeing it a few weeks ago on one of my other machines. Or maybe they pulled it (http://blogs.msdn.com/pix/archive/2007/01/30/nikon-raw-codec-issues.aspx). Either way, give us some sort of explanation - you can't have a smart, auto-updating application then allow it to break so quickly.
Canon users aren't any better off - the other browser window it opened up was to this Windows File Association page (http://shell.windows.com/fileassoc/0409/xml/redir.asp?EXT=crw). Wow. Could Microsoft do anything more unfriendly? When you click on the Canon link, you get taken to a page (http://shell.windows.com/fileassoc/coming_soon.htm) that says "coming soon".
This experience is ugly from head to toe - why is Microsoft allowing this to go off the tracks so quickly after Vista's launch? Is everyone on post-launch vacation?