Windows 7 not auto rotating pictures

Anonymous

I use Nik and Adobe software to edit photos and currently use Nikon Transfer to import photos, these programs read the exif auto rotate imformation stored by my nikon D80.

My problem is that when I view my pictures in Window explorer or Windows live photo gallery they are not auto rotated to portrait mode, it has become apparent that these programs are unable to to read the exif information.

I have tried rotating to portrait mode in explorer and photo gallery only to discover that when I view these pics in another non microsoft program that they revert back to landscape mode, I have also used win 7 autoplay to import pics and they are rotated correctly using win7 programs but not in other programs I use.

Is there a current fix for this problem?

Using Win7 64bit

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Answer accepted by question author

Anonymous

Hi,

Some photo applications will display a photo as rotated which is referred to as soft rotating by reading metadata on the photo itself. Although the Photo Gallery rotates photos on import using this same metadata, many a times it doesn't also rotate all un-rotated photos in their collection for them automatically, or at least display the photos as rotated like some other applications do.

The reason that the Photo Gallery rotates on import, but not after that is because there are a number of applications that don't correctly update the photo metadata after rotating. This metadata is supposed to reflect the state of the photo, but if the photo is rotated without updating this metadata, another application using this metadata to determine whether or not to rotate it will incorrectly rotate the photo.

During import, the photos are coming directly from the camera, at which point the integrity of this metadata is not in question. So although it's safe for the Photo Gallery to rely on this metadata to make an accurate rotate decision during import, as soon as the photo makes its way to the PC, any other application could interact with the photo, and potentially corrupt this metadata. Therefore, the Photo Gallery doesn't soft rotate at this point.

Regards,

Syed N – Microsoft Support

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The great part of Microsoft's answer is this explanation and this is how it reads to me; well if other programs don't read and write Exif data correctly, Windows and MS products shouldn't either. Don't cater to the bad programs, program to a higher standard and then people will make the choice not to use these ones that don't work correctly, or allow your software to update or correct the metadata to repair these photos with bad metadata, making your product superior and the product people actually want to use.

Microsoft, any fixes expected for Windows 7 Explorer and Photoviewer coming soon?

Come on Microsoft, get your act together, there is a reason people are leaving you so quickly for Apple!

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46 additional answers

Anonymous

2010-12-04T17:21:18+00:00

And what about answering the question ??

Microsoft is clearly creating a problem, that is frustrating a big number of people.

We are no more in the 90s when photoshop elements / lightroom/ aperture did not exist or were not used by that many people... A LOT of people is using an external application to manage their pictures... and all those LEGIT applications do not have ANY problems with EXIF AUTOROTATING and soft rotations.

But YOU continue to stick to your flawed philosophy of forbidding soft rotation based on exif. And as a result, you stand in the way and get people UPSET and very ANGRY against Microsoft. To be frank, if I could I would not care about the whole Microsoft Viewer... but guess what Grandma is going to want to see those pictures... and I am NOT going to explain grandma how metadata, exif and rotation works just because the VERY SMART employees of Microsoft decided that it was a crime against humanity to allow people to check a box saying "auto-rotate image according to exif" (just check how it is done in a FREE app like Irfanview)

I don't care that you think it is best for me not to have this option, just make it available with a disclaimer that I am not going to sue you if microsoft viewer is soft-rotating my pictures. I, and a lot of other upset people, will happily do so. I will even check that box in Grandma's computer.

But please, not for me not for the users of Lighroom, aperture etc but for our grandmas and grandpas just please put a box allowing it.

Really, did not you learn a lesson with Vista and UAC ? People get really frustrated, annoyed and upset at you when you try to control their life for their own good. I can make my choice, leave it as an option so that most people will keep it as is but at least you wont have tons of complaints from the rest of your customers. Yes, customers.
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Anonymous

2010-12-11T00:14:08+00:00

Well I started this thread back in April, with all of the updates and the new Windows photo gallery, still no joy!

I currently use Nikon transfer 2 to import my pics, all rotated according to the exif file, explorer and photo gallery show the pic correctly, but I wish sometimes that I could just insert my sd card and view the pictures in explorer correctly orientated, pick the ones I want and drag to my computer with out having to manually rotate to verticle, by the way when I rotate verticle in explorer or photo gallery after drag and drop my other programs (non microsoft) revert orientation back to landscape.

Win 7 really messes up the exif files when you drag and drop, so for now just waiting to see if Microsoft will ever address this issue?
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Anonymous

2010-12-11T20:08:28+00:00

Hey Mary - Support Engineer!

I saw that you unproposed my post as an answer, maybe you should also start to tackle the issue instead of unresponding to our requests ?

Unhappy future uncustomer,
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Anonymous

2010-12-27T03:43:31+00:00

Hi all, I am having the same orientation issue with Windows apps when sending or using picture taken with my iPhone. After the Apple 4.XX upgrade, all pictures started to come in sideway, or upside down.

I was very upset with Apple, as they said it was not their fault. This is the answer their tech support gave me:

According to what info they have provided it sounds like the industry standard for EXIF data was changed in May/June of this year and that 4.0 which was released at the end of June complied with that change. From what I understand any change in how mail clients like Outlook view pictures reflects that change in EXIF data not how the iPhone itself sends the image.

Based on this thread, maybe they are right??

We need a solution !!
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