Vista - Photo Gallery: not indexing Pictures folder

Hey, can anyone help me out?

Recently upgraded to Vista Home Premium. Liking it, but running into some
odd behaviors:

1. The Photo Gallery does not list the Pictures folder in its folders, and
does not show the pictures from that folder. Dragging files into Photo
Gallery copies them to the Pictures folder, but they still don't show up.
Can't add the Pictures folder, message says, "This folder or one of its
parent folders is considered a system folder or marked as hidden..." but the
folder is not hidden.

2. (Not Photo Gallery related) I have a folder Pictures/Honeymoon. All
pictures in there are tagged with the tag "Honeymoon". If I go into Media
Center, I can browse by folder just fine, but it won't pick up the Honeymoon
folder if browsing via tags or date. If I move a tagged item into the
Pictures folder, I can then see it, but it is listed as having "no tags".

Anyone have any ideas? Thanks.

Benjamin Mullen wrote:
>snip<> 2. (Not Photo Gallery related) I have a folder Pictures/Honeymoon.
>All
> pictures in there are tagged with the tag "Honeymoon". If I go into
> Media Center, I can browse by folder just fine, but it won't pick up
> the Honeymoon folder if browsing via tags or date. If I move a tagged
> item into the Pictures folder, I can then see it, but it is listed as
> having "no tags".
>
> Anyone have any ideas? Thanks.
=======================================
Just wondering...which software did
you use to tag the image files?

--

John Inzer
MS Picture It! -
Digital Image MVP

Digital Image
Highlights and FAQs
http://tinyurl.com/aczzp

Notice
This is not tech support
I am a volunteer

Solutions that work for
me may not work for you

Proceed at your own risk

I tagged them via Properties -> Details

"John Inzer" wrote:

> Benjamin Mullen wrote:
> >snip<> 2. (Not Photo Gallery related) I have a folder Pictures/Honeymoon.
> >All
> > pictures in there are tagged with the tag "Honeymoon". If I go into
> > Media Center, I can browse by folder just fine, but it won't pick up
> > the Honeymoon folder if browsing via tags or date. If I move a tagged
> > item into the Pictures folder, I can then see it, but it is listed as
> > having "no tags".
> >
> > Anyone have any ideas? Thanks.
> =======================================
> Just wondering...which software did
> you use to tag the image files?
>
> --
>
> John Inzer
> MS Picture It! -
> Digital Image MVP
>
> Digital Image
> Highlights and FAQs
> http://tinyurl.com/aczzp
>
> Notice
> This is not tech support
> I am a volunteer
>
> Solutions that work for
> me may not work for you
>
> Proceed at your own risk
>
>
>

Benjamin Mullen wrote:
> I tagged them via Properties -> Details
=================================
Sorry for the long answer but hopefully it
will shed some light.

Ok...since Photo Gallery provides a Details
tab I'll assume that's the app you used to
add the tags.

I don't know exactly what caused the issue
you are dealing with but I do know that Photo
Gallery has a proprietary database that
may be corrupted. There's a possible
chance that renaming that database will
solve the problem.

If you search for and rename the database...
the Photo Gallery will create a new one the
next time it is launched. Be aware that you
will lose the metadata that is currently stored.

If the issue is not solved by this method...
you can rename the database back to the
original name and continue searching for the
correct solution.

This database named "Pictures.pd4" includes
thumbs and metadata and is found at the
following location.

C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Local\Microsoft\
Windows Photo Gallery\Pictures.pd4

The file can also be found with an Advanced
Search for pd4.

Go to...Start / Search / Advanced Search.

Check the box..."Include non-indexed, hidden,
and system files" Enter pd4 in the Name field
and left click the Search button.

Right click / rename the file to: Pictures.OLD

Probably not essential but at this point I think I
would restart the computer.

Now open your Photo Gallery and see if any
improvement is realized.

Good Luck.


--

John Inzer
MS Picture It! -
Digital Image MVP

Digital Image
Highlights and FAQs
http://tinyurl.com/aczzp

Notice
This is not tech support
I am a volunteer

Solutions that work for
me may not work for you

Proceed at your own risk

Hi John,

Actually, I didn't use a program to tag the images. I right-clicked,
selected properties, and then selected the Details tab there in order to add
my tags.

And I've actually tried that solution - unfortunately for me, deleting (or
moving) Pictures.pd4 did not work either - the metadata database was
reconstructed to what it was when I originally upgraded; it contained Videos,
Public Pictures and Public Videos as folders... no Pictures folder.

Thanks for the help,
Ben

"John Inzer" wrote:

> Benjamin Mullen wrote:
> > I tagged them via Properties -> Details
> =================================
> Sorry for the long answer but hopefully it
> will shed some light.
>
> Ok...since Photo Gallery provides a Details
> tab I'll assume that's the app you used to
> add the tags.
>
> I don't know exactly what caused the issue
> you are dealing with but I do know that Photo
> Gallery has a proprietary database that
> may be corrupted. There's a possible
> chance that renaming that database will
> solve the problem.
>
> If you search for and rename the database...
> the Photo Gallery will create a new one the
> next time it is launched. Be aware that you
> will lose the metadata that is currently stored.
>
> If the issue is not solved by this method...
> you can rename the database back to the
> original name and continue searching for the
> correct solution.
>
> This database named "Pictures.pd4" includes
> thumbs and metadata and is found at the
> following location.
>
> C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Local\Microsoft\
> Windows Photo Gallery\Pictures.pd4
>
> The file can also be found with an Advanced
> Search for pd4.
>
> Go to...Start / Search / Advanced Search.
>
> Check the box..."Include non-indexed, hidden,
> and system files" Enter pd4 in the Name field
> and left click the Search button.
>
> Right click / rename the file to: Pictures.OLD
>
> Probably not essential but at this point I think I
> would restart the computer.
>
> Now open your Photo Gallery and see if any
> improvement is realized.
>
> Good Luck.
>
>
> --
>
> John Inzer
> MS Picture It! -
> Digital Image MVP
>
> Digital Image
> Highlights and FAQs
> http://tinyurl.com/aczzp
>
> Notice
> This is not tech support
> I am a volunteer
>
> Solutions that work for
> me may not work for you
>
> Proceed at your own risk
>
>
>

Benjamin Mullen wrote:
> Hi John,
>
> Actually, I didn't use a program to tag the images. I right-clicked,
> selected properties, and then selected the Details tab there in order
> to add my tags.
>
> And I've actually tried that solution - unfortunately for me,
> deleting (or moving) Pictures.pd4 did not work either - the metadata
> database was reconstructed to what it was when I originally upgraded;
> it contained Videos, Public Pictures and Public Videos as folders...
> no Pictures folder.
>
> Thanks for the help,
> Ben
==================================
Sorry...It was worth a try.

--

John Inzer
MS Picture It! -
Digital Image MVP

Digital Image
Highlights and FAQs
http://tinyurl.com/aczzp

Notice
This is not tech support
I am a volunteer

Solutions that work for
me may not work for you

Proceed at your own risk

Benjamin,

This is going to sound crazy but, have you added all the appropriate
directories to your Photo Gallery? The default Vista pictures directory
should be there by defaut I would think but you would need to add any other
directories yourself. I forget exactly where you do this within Photo Gallery
but I'm sure it's in a tools or options menu somewhere.

As far as searching for tagged files, I had a similar issue where tagged
files wouldn't show up on searches. One, there's only a couple of directories
that are indexed by default. You have to go into the control panel, indexing
and add all directories/drives you wish to have indexed and then wait a while
for the to all be properly indexed before you can expect to see good results
from a search.

Hopefully this information will help you with one or both of your issues.

Sincerely,
- Byron Followell


"Benjamin Mullen" wrote:

> Hey, can anyone help me out?
>
> Recently upgraded to Vista Home Premium. Liking it, but running into some
> odd behaviors:
>
> 1. The Photo Gallery does not list the Pictures folder in its folders, and
> does not show the pictures from that folder. Dragging files into Photo
> Gallery copies them to the Pictures folder, but they still don't show up.
> Can't add the Pictures folder, message says, "This folder or one of its
> parent folders is considered a system folder or marked as hidden..." but the
> folder is not hidden.
>
> 2. (Not Photo Gallery related) I have a folder Pictures/Honeymoon. All
> pictures in there are tagged with the tag "Honeymoon". If I go into Media
> Center, I can browse by folder just fine, but it won't pick up the Honeymoon
> folder if browsing via tags or date. If I move a tagged item into the
> Pictures folder, I can then see it, but it is listed as having "no tags".
>
> Anyone have any ideas? Thanks.