Photo viewer problem

Hey guys,


Sorry if I sound a complete idiot, but I'm not exactly a whizz on all things windows.

Has anyone come across any problems with the photo viewer? I find that if i rotate any photos, Photo viewer saves them, but then they disappear from the file that they were in, and I'm unable to find them again. It seems that the photos are still there in the file, but I'm unable to access them to view.

Hoping that theres a real easy solution to this as I've lost some valuable photos!

Thanks for any advice anyone could give.

I don't generally use Windows Photo Viewer for editing (though I do sometimes use it to preview folders) but I went ahead and tried rotating a JPG and I was unable to duplicate your situation.

Where are your photos stored ... The My Pictures Library? If the pictures are in an email then you should save them to My Pictures first because attachments are opened in a temporary storage area and eventually deleted.

Have you looked for the file within Windows Explorer? or tried a search for the file name to see if maybe it was placed in a different folder?

Are you absolutely sure it is Photo Viewer; is it only these pictures that you edited that have disappeared? There are some viruses that change all your files to hidden system files which then disappear because windows default is to hide system files. I'm not saying this is what has happened but if other things like menu items, desktop icons, your documents, etc have also disappeared then it is a possibility. I just removed one of these annoying pieces of malware from the neighbors computer this past weekend.

thanks for your reply. I'm starting to think its a virus also as its only started to happen recently

All my photos were saved in the pictures library and viewed using windows photos viewer. I ran some test shots last night and only the photos that i rotated disappeared from the file. Very strange and frustrating!

Do you know of any way you can get windows to show all hidden files again?

oh and i have tried searching for these missing files but cannot find them

You're going to want to be careful mentioning hidden files, as that's a folder option setting. There are super hidden files, and even system files that are hidden for a reason.

I personally don't use the windows photo viewer for editing either, but I do know that while I was using it, it will replace the original file with any edits on closing, whether you save those changes or not. Doesn't even ask for confirmation.

"only the photos that i rotated disappeared from the file."

what do you mean by that? or do you mean the directory?

If everything is working the way it should, all of the edits should appear in the same directory that you opened the original file in, but it WILL replace the old one with any recent edits you've made on the original image.

I'm a photoshop guru lol, so I have no use for a silly program like that, when I have the experience with an advanced editor like photoshop.

hi Ace,

Yeah, the files go missing from the directory. I would rotate the photo, either clockwise or counter clockwise, then forward to the next photo - at which point the program would save any changes made to the previous photo. Thats when the file would disappear.

Type command on the start search line.
Run the command prompt.
Type CD \users\redstar79\pictures
Type ATTRIB -h *.jpg /s

That should unhide all JPG files under My Pictures and it's sub-folders.

Post back the results/any errors.

omg Trainableman its just worked and all my photos are back!!


Thank you dude, you are awesome

You may also want to do that for ...
ATTRIB -h *.jpeg /s
and
ATTRIB -h *.BMP /s

JPG is the most common spelling but JPEG is also allowed these days so you may not have any of them but it doesn't hurt to check and BMP is relatively old but you may have a few.

I am still a bit concerned as to why they would go hidden because I'm not familiar with any reason that would happen through normal use. I would recommend you install malwarebytes (the free version), allow it to update to the latest and then run a complete scan. A link to Malwarebytes can be found in our Freeware DB.

I would also run a complete scan with whatever anti-virus software you have installed; if you don't have any then pick up Microsoft Essentials from the freeware DB as well (it's not perfect but it is far better than none at all).

If Malwarebytes or your AV refuse to install or run that is often a sign that some nasty malware is actually hiding out there blocking them so please let us know if that is the case. If so you will also need RKILL to terminate them first.

I'm not sure why it's hiding your files. You can do the same by going to the right click menu for a file. Properties > Hidden (checkbox). And you can even set those files to always be visible through your folder options. You just don't want to set the one to view important system files. But i'm glad you got it figured out.