Microsoft Picture It incompatability with Windows 7 and alternatives for .mix files.

Anonymous
2009-12-18T06:22:35+00:00

I have been using Microsoft Picture It for years to design tons of graphics for my business and now I have purchased a new pc loaded with Windows 7 and find that my true love Picture It! is not compatable.  I never dreamed this would be the case for a software that isn't even a decade old or that new pc I just spent thousands on would be sitting right back at the store it came from.  I really feel that Microsoft has cheated me out of something I paid for and invested so much work in by making it unusable and it has brought my small business to a standstill.  What other program is available that is compatable with Windows 7 that will allow me to edit and view existing .mix and other Picture It! format files and contain all the capabilities of Picture It?  I would be willing to purchase additional software from Microsoft to make Picture It compatable to Windows 7 if necessary.

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Apps

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

0 comments
Answer accepted by question author
Anonymous
2011-03-14T18:21:06+00:00

Hello all,

I know that you are all disappointed that Microsoft Picture It is not compatible with Windows 7. 

Your feedback would be better heard if you send it to the Windows 7 Feedback site.

http://mymfe.microsoft.com/Windows%207/Feedback.aspx?formID=195

These are your options when software is not compatible:

If the program is not compatible, then you may try to install and run the program in compatibility mode.

Use the following steps:

1)      Right click on the Program

2)      Click on Properties

3)      Click on Compatibility tab

4)      Select Run this program in compatibility mode and select Windows XP, Windows Vista or whatever operating system the program was running successfully.

Refer to the link here: Make older programs run in this version of Windows

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/Make-older-programs-run-in-this-version-of-Windows

If you run Windows 7 Professional or Ultimate version, install Windows Virtual PC and Windows XP mode (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/default.aspx) and execute your software in Windows XP.

If you run Windows 7 Home Premium, try VirtualBox (www.virtualbox.org) or VMware Player

(www.vmware.com) or any other 3party virtualization software and install a separate copy of Windows XP (either Home Edition or Professional) for that purpose. You can find virtualization software free of charge that will run on Windows 7 Home Premium. 

Sincerely,

Marilyn

Was this answer helpful?

10+ people found this answer helpful.
0 comments

320 additional answers

Sort by: Most helpful
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Anonymous
    2016-12-28T15:24:43+00:00

    I have just come across an article on www.fotojet.com which allegedly helps you create brilliant coolages. I haven't tried it - partly because it sounds as though I can do much the same  thing in Photoshop Elements or Paint.net. However, if you want a dedicated program, it might be worth a look. 

    John Presland

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  2. Anonymous
    2016-12-23T09:13:14+00:00

    I wonder if I might still be able to help Marianne and others. When I used Picture It it was as a photo editing program and I never looked at the collage features. Were you getting it to produce collages automatically or just using its procedures to devise collages of your own? The two main programs I describe in my "Easy Digital Plant Photography" both enable you to construct your own collages. Photoshop Elements has to be purchased but Paint.net (an entirely different program from Microsoft's Paint) is free.  I found both difficult to use when starting from scratch because the instructions appeared not to be designed for people in that position. That is one reason why I have written the book. I am confident that anyone following the instructions there should be able to create a collage without too much difficulty. 

    I have actually used them for only two collages so far, both for book covers. One of them was for my book "Botany Where You Are". I took photographs of 4 local botanical scenes and a local signpost and combined them into a fantasy single picture. If you look up this book on Amazon, you can see it on a reproduction of the front cover. The other is for the cover of my photography book and should be similarly accessible when it comes out - hopefully in a month or so. It has a camera in the bottom right-hand corner from which radiate many photographs which overlap each other. 

    John Presland

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  3. Anonymous
    2016-12-22T16:59:57+00:00

    17Thanks for the suggestion, and I did check out the product page. But as I read the overview, I don't see that it makes collages -- which is the whole value of Picture It: it makes collages easy and elegant.

    Microsoft's first "replacement" for Picture It was Digital Image Pro, and while it seemed to be building a collage the same way, the results were never as good. The blends were never as smooth, and the whole finished product just didn't look as good.  Digital Image Pro seemed to be mostly a photo organizer and viewer, with features similar to Picture It, only dumbed down. I used it to create maybe two collages, then went back to Picture It.

    The odd thing is that Picture It did work under Windows 10 when I first had Windows 10. It was only after those first few unwanted updates that it stopped working.

    I read not long ago that over 50% of the world is still using Windows 7, and about 25-30% is still using Windows XP. That ought to serve as a suggestion to Microsoft that failing to support your own software in new operating systems is a serious disservice to customers.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  4. Anonymous
    2016-12-22T15:32:56+00:00

    Try FastStone Image Viewer from www.faststone.org. It does pretty much what Picture It did and its free and easy to use.

    You might be interested in my book "Easy Digital Plant Photography" soon to be available on Amazon, hopefully in a month or so. It deals with photo editing in more detail and tries to make it user friendly,which most publishers don't.

    John Presland

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments