Adam Albright

On Sat, 14 Jul 2007 08:54:02 -0700, dickey38
<dickey38@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:

>Using Windows Explorer, navigate to the Public Pictures/Sample Pictures
>folder, I understand that there should be a "preview pane" on the far right
>of the window. I get no such preview pane. Under Folder Options I have
>checked "Show preview and filters" (General tab), checked "Show preview
>handlers in preview pane" (View tab), and unchecked "Always show icons, never
>thumbnails" (View tab). If I click on a picture (showing large icons) a
>"Preview" option appears on the top menu bar, but clicking Preview opens a
>new window with full picture. No preview pane, no preview.
>
>I'm running under Vista Business. Any suggestions?

The Preview pane can appear at the bottom or side. Personally I prefer
it at the bottom. To see it, click on Organize, Layout, then Preview
Pane. Now regardless if you set up Windows Explorer to be in one of
the icon views (show thumbnails) or in detail view to show specifics
about your files a thumbnail will appear in the Preview Pane as you
single click on image files. Double clicking on the file opens it in
Photo Gallery.

Photo Galley doesn't set up a separate folder structure. It simply
mimics what Window Explorer shows. Further you can bring up Photo
Gallery anytime at any point from Windows Explorer by double clicking
on a image file. You can then move back and forth in the folder you
happen to be in with the control buttons provided.

Where some people get confused is when they "add" folders to Photo
Gallery. This simply causes Photo Galley to add such folders to it's
list of folders it will by default show. So if you bring up Photo
Gallery from a short cut you set up or by clicking Start, then typing
Photo Galley or Windows Photo Gallery in a simple search, then
clicking on that link you get presented with a totally different view.

So if your bring up Photo Gallery by double clicking on any image in
Windows Explorer, you are limited to seeing what is in the folder you
happen to be in. However if you bring up Photo Gallery directly it
will "remember" all the folders you at some point added and display
more optional views.

Example:

When I first installed Vista I just played around with Photo Gallery.
So for me, right now, if I bring up Photo Gallery directly, it shows
in the left pane the following folders:

all pictures and videos. Under pictures there are 8,640 thumbnails.
Under videos a dozen.

Under tags, there are several for the included demos images included
with Vista, plus folders for tags I CREATED, like my vacation,
Freckles, my dog, etc..

Further is depends WHAT you add. So I have a folder for each of star
rankings and images (in right pane) under each plus under Date taken I
not only have years, like 1999, 2001, etc., but folders for individual
months and even days within the months. What can end up here DEPENDS
on what metadata in ALREDY in the file OR what you add by right
clicking on the file, properties, details. While a nice feature it can
get confusing depending on where you look and how you sort.

Since Photo Galley can act as a de facto depository it can be
misleading if you try to use it to locate files. Just to see if it
could, I popped in a old CD I made years ago that had six small videos
on it. Sure enough, Photo Gallery was able to open the CD and did
create a thumbnail for each video. Since a CD can be removed obviously
unless that particular CD happens to be in the CD/DVD drive right now
it won't be able to access the files if it isn't, yet you will see
thumbnails.

For that and other reasons it makes more sense to use Windows Explorer
to set up a folder structure. The more photos you have the more
practical this becomes.