Windows Live Photo Gallery rocks!

I've tried the import wizard and it's perfect. also the panorama stitching is really amazing, I've done a dozen photos of one of my house's room and it managed to create a perfect panorama from them :O

the only issue I had is that the toolbar doesn't show entirely with a low resolution (for example 1024x768 that is still the most used) and you lose the Create/Open menus.

IMO it's not worth the performance hit (particularly on startup) that I get because of Windows Desktop Search.

Looks very nice, but I'm not running WDS for a reason, and I'd like to keep it that way.

CannotResolveSymbol wrote:

IMO it's not worth the performance hit (particularly on startup) that I get because of Windows Desktop Search.

Looks very nice, but I'm not running WDS for a reason, and I'd like to keep it that way.

I'm actually using it on Vista however I find the startup behaviour on WDS on XP particularly annoying since it always rescans all the files every time it's started. I hope they'll fix that.

YearOfTheLinuxDesktop wrote:

I'm actually using it on Vista however I find the startup behaviour on WDS on XP particularly annoying since it always rescans all the files every time it's started. I hope they'll fix that.

WDS 3.x does not do a rescan on each boot.

What exactly makes you think that this is happening? Are you noticing some unusual activity from one of the WDS services?

Are you running an antivirus? If yes, which one?

Live Photo Gallery doesn't support x64 yet, so I can't check it out.

Sven Groot wrote:



Live Photo Gallery doesn't support x64 yet, so I can't check it out.

Sucks, but then again Sony haven't released a working x64 version of the codec for my camera's RAW files either, so I'll stick with lightroom (which rocks!)

My internet connection's a bit flaky at the moment, but this is the closest I get to an official statement to support the "no x64" claim.

LarryOsterman wrote:



Sven Groot wrote:  Live Photo Gallery doesn't support x64 yet, so I can't check it out.

??

I'm surprised at this assertion - you're saying that the 32bit version doesn't run on x64?

It's not my assertion, it's Microsofts: http://get.live.com/en-us/betas/photogallery_sysreq

Live Photo Gallery system requirements wrote:

(Windows 2003 Server (Win2K3) and Windows Vista x64 are not supported.)

I don't think it's a driver though. My guess would be there's some explorer integration, and 64 bit explorer wouldn't be able to load a 32 bit extension DLL.

EDIT: It's not just Photo Gallery, it's all the new betas. Even Messenger. If you try to run the installer it gives a message you can't install it on this OS.

Quite frankly it's idiotic. If the older betas supported x64, and the final will support x64, why not this beta?

PaoloM wrote:


WDS 3.x does not do a rescan on each boot.

What exactly makes you think that this is happening? Are you noticing some unusual activity from one of the WDS services?

I see it indexing all the files again and again (the tray icon shows the progress) every time I start it.

PaoloM wrote:

Are you running an antivirus? If yes, which one?

KAV 6.0 but that happened also on systems where only windows and office were installed and that weren't connected to the internet.

YearOfTheLinuxDesktop wrote:



PaoloM wrote:  WDS 3.x does not do a rescan on each boot. What exactly makes you think that this is happening? Are you noticing some unusual activity from one of the WDS services?

I see it indexing all the files again and again (the tray icon shows the progress) every time I start it.

The only reason why that would happen is if the files have been changed since the last indexing. Antiviruses are notorious to crack open files to check for signatures and updating the "Last Modified" property instead of the "Last Accessed" one.

Those files then appear to WDS as edited and thus worthy of a rescan.

YearOfTheLinuxDesktop wrote:



PaoloM wrote: Are you running an antivirus? If yes, which one?

KAV 6.0 but that happened also on systems where only windows and office were installed and that weren't connected to the internet.

Upgrade to 7.0 and see if the problem is still there. We had huge issues with our A/V until they issued a patch that made them behave as "right"

For those of you with x64 os's: link

CannotResolveSymbol wrote:

IMO it's not worth the performance hit (particularly on startup) that I get because of Windows Desktop Search.

Looks very nice, but I'm not running WDS for a reason, and I'd like to keep it that way.

Err... I have WDS disabled and  photo gallery still works fine (I think you just need it installed, not running).

GoddersUK wrote:

For those of you with x64 os's: link

CannotResolveSymbol wrote: IMO it's not worth the performance hit (particularly on startup) that I get because of Windows Desktop Search. Looks very nice, but I'm not running WDS for a reason, and I'd like to keep it that way.

Err... I have WDS disabled and  photo gallery still works fine (I think you just need it installed, not running).

Hmmm...  might have to try that.

edit:  and we have a winner!  Disable Windows Search in Services and remove the Desktop Search applet from the Startup folder and photo gallery still works!

So why do they install WDS, again?  If you're going to use it's API to do your own indexing (as WLPG seems to be doing), please at least give the user the option to not have WDS turned on globally!

JetPhoto Studio.  Much better application.  Supports my beloved Windows Server 2003 and has a better feature set.  I like the integration of apps in Windows Vista but since they dont support all the OS's I use, f-it, I wont use em.

CannotResolveSymbol wrote:

So why do they install WDS, again?  If you're going to use it's API to do your own indexing (as WLPG seems to be doing), please at least give the user the option to not have WDS turned on globally!

You can't turn on/off WDS other than globally because it's a system service.

You can, however, decide which folders to index and not index in the search control panel applet (sorry, I don't have an XP machine nearby so I don't remember exactly the steps).

rjdohnert wrote:

JetPhoto Studio.  Much better application.  Supports my beloved Windows Server 2003 and has a better feature set.  I like the integration of apps in Windows Vista but since they dont support all the OS's I use, f-it, I wont use em.

Thanks for your valuable feedback.

I may have only a question, tho... what exactly in the world makes you think that Windows Live Photo Gallery is a Vista-only application?

I never said that.  It doesnt support Server 2003 and it only supports XP SP2 and Windows Vista.  If its not going to support the OS I wish to use, and that I have a legal license for then why use it?

When I referred to Vista I was talking about Photo Gallery, Windows Calendar, Windows Mail and the integrated search.

PaoloM wrote:


Thanks for your valuable feedback.

I may have only a question, tho... what exactly in the world makes you think that Windows Live Photo Gallery is a Vista-only application?