Reply
Tue 8 Jun, 2004 07:03 pm
Hi, my computer recently started something weird.
I often copy photos off the internet to email to friends or to study at a later time (I am a photographer and like to study misc. photos--weird, I know).
Anyway, for the last few months, when I flyover a pic to save it, or if I right-click to save it, the window that opens up defaults to saving as a .bmp.
Now, you know as well as I that virtually zero photos online are .bmp's. They are .gif's or .jpg's usually.
So, I click the dropdown box for file types and the only option available is .bmp.
I need to know how to correct this, please. Preferably without reloading Windows, as I'm not certain I can find the disk.
I'm running Win XP on a strong machine (1 gig RAM, 100 gig HD, 1.6 GHz processor, etc.).
Thanks,
General Tsao
This one has bugged me for years. Solution's not much of a solution.
Here ya go:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q260650
Craven,
Thanks for the prompt response!
The causes listed do not apply to me. My cache is nowhere near full (it is 2856 MB in size, and only 727 MB used).
The other "cause" does not apply, either, since I don't have the checkbox checked.
Do you have any other ideas?
Thanks,
General Tsao
PS: You did better finding your way around MS's website--I can never find what I'm looking for on their site!
I never use the MS site to find things. I use the A2K toolbar. ;-)
IE saving images as bmp is a notorious issue. Workarounds galore have been reported.
Increasing, decreasing the cache size and rebooting is one.
Here is more from MS (only a few items are related)
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;810978
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;250747
Now this can drive you nuts, I've been dealing with it for years.
Because it's transitive and goes away I rarely bother with it. But here's a workaround to save the image:
"save target as" works. So if you create a link to the file (I just hammer out some html in notepad or make a link in Outlook) you can save it correctly.
Years ago, when I had to use an Internet Cafe to access the Web, I too noticed that IE gave .bmp as the only graphic-saving option.
I got around that problem very quickly - I used Netscape, instead!
Netscape 7 is even better than before, being able to have multiple tabs in the same window AND having the personal toolbar bookmarks right up there within instant reach! Netscape's default image saving type is whatever the original was but allows you to choose 'all files' and type in your own.
I only use IE when I really have to - I don't like it at all. But even that's not as bad as MSN (IMHO) which I hate even more!
Shekeda wrote:default image saving type is whatever the original was but allows you to choose 'all files' and type in your own.
Simply typing a new filename extension does
NOT change the image's format...you have to actually convert it or save it in a different format. Some image viewers may be able to display images using the wrong extension (after first figuring out what format they're
really using), but that doesn't change anything.
Monger wrote:
"Simply typing a new filename extension does NOT change the image's format...you have to actually convert it or save it in a different format."
Okay, thanks for that. At least Netscape lets you save it as a .gif or .jpg file, as that's what the originals usually are. The only use for .bmp files that I know of is to enable use of the picture as your computer's wallpaper.
Shekeda wrote:The only use for .bmp files that I know of is to enable use of the picture as your computer's wallpaper.
Well, two very basic advantages of BMP over JPG and GIF is that it's a lossless image format, and just about every image editor out there can work with it. Both GIF and JPG are lossy formats, e.g. they use a compression algorithm that actually reduces the amount of information in the data, rather than just the number of bits used to represent that information. Of course, if you already have a JPG or GIF image, converting it to BMP isn't going to create extra information, but at least you won't, by necessity, lose any quality during the conversion. There are many lossless & lossy image formats of course, and each has its pros & cons...
There are two fairly simple ways to work around this problem:
1) Drag the image on to your desktop. It will save as a .jpg or .gif.
2) Save the entire webpage to your desktop and then open the folder (a file and folder will be saved) and pull out the desired file.
By the way, I've encountered this bug in IE many times too, but since it's transitive I usually just ignore it. I don't mind it much either, since unless I'm saving an animated GIF I can just convert the file without any quality loss later on if need be.
Dragging images to your desktop or windows explorer is a nice, easy workaround, but it doesn't work if the image is being used as a link, in which case a shortcut to the target will be copied rather than the image.
Stumble It!
Tweet This
Bookmark on Delicious
Share on Facebook
Share on MySpace