Vista - Do you need two photo programs

My question to the forun is this: What is the purpose of the software that comes with the purchase of a digital camera? I purchased a SonyDSC-S650 and ran the disk that came with it. It appears to me that now I have photos in two places. Should I delete the Sony program or is it better to store my photos using their software. I am new at this and need some advise from you good people. Thank You.

It has been my experience that the software that comes supplied with such devices as Printers, Scanner or Digital Cameras (amoungst others) at totally inadequate to the task, so not altogether feature rich enough to be of any real use.

In your case, if the software is uninstalled, what happens when you link your camera to the computer? Does it show up as a removable storage device that you can browse using Windows Explorer?

One other preferred solution (for me anyway) is to use a card reader into which can insert the SD Card from your camera. This is a good way of doing things, especially if you have some other photo library program that you would prefer to use. ACDSee is a good one, but you must buy it to use it. Windows Live Photo Gallery I have found to be perfect for my needs, because it's free and has the features that we are all likely to use

I am uninstalling the Sony software and we will see what happens. Yes I have a card reader and it shows up as a removable device I think. I like the program that came with my HP computer as I have three different card readers. Thanks Dzomlija for you quick response.

That's what we are here for, William. Let us know how it turns out?

Everything turned out fine. No problems showed up so I should be fine. I keep my computer almost like it was when I got it with the exceptions of my anti virus, reg cleaners, java etc. Again thank you I really enjoy this forum.

I do have one other thing (ha) that I need help on. Here is what I want to do. After downloading my photos I would like to send then to family members. I sent out a large file about 50 photos in E-Mail but to view them you have to click on each attachment. I would like to send the whole file and have that file be able to be viewed in windows photo gallery as a slide show. Could someone please tell me how to get started. Do I need windows live and how do I get it etc. Thank you so very much.

There are several way of going about doing this.

The first would be to not open each image individually from within the message, but to save the attachments as a group. The method for doing so varies from mail client to mail client, but the technique remains the same. In Windows Live Mail, right-click on any one of the attachments, then select "Save All" from the menu that appears. In Outlook 2007, open the message, click the message orb, then Save As/Save Attachments.

The second would be to use an archive program, such as WinZip, and then send the files as a single ZIP file that can be opened and then have the contents extracted...

Thank you Dzomlija I will try out the steps you have outlined. I will have to read up on some of it first. Thanks, I will get back to you.