Windows 7 Photo Viewer Not Displaying TIFFs

[equake]

Windows 7 Host and Guest 64bit not displaying a TIF file with the windows photo viewer. The Windows Photo Viewer just hangs with "loading..." begin displayed.

Anyone else have this issue?

[mpack]

This does not sound like a VBox issue, unless your issue is a corrupted drive.

Try running chkdsk on your drive. If the drive is fine and you still get the problem then you should seek support on a Microsoft forum.

[Sasquatch]

If you don't get much more than "Loading...", it usually means the image is corrupt or Windows is unable to show the file. Where is this file located and do other picture viewers work? Does the file have the correct file extension? And what Mpack said.

[equake]

The same TIF file was displayed fine in Office 2010 Photo Manager but the standard Windows Photo Viewer does not seem to display the picture. I tried with JPG files also and they are NOT displayed either. IE9 and Paint displays the JPGs fine.

Can someone test this in their Guests?

[GulDukat]

Hi everyone i have the same problem with VB version 4.0.10.
My primary system is Win7-64, my guest is the same - Win7-64 (used as a terminal for a second person).
In my guest system, jpg files cant be opened by default windows image viewer, an error window says "PhotoViewer.dll is not a valid Win32 application".
Internet Explorer and Paint open the images normally.
The second thing is, that IE can not open images in VB shared folder.

[mpack]

That error message makes it plain that your problem is not with JPEGs, it's with the "PhotoViewer.dll" file.

Like I said before, run a chkdsk, and/or get support from Microsoft. Come back here when you have evidence that it's a VBox problem.

[GulDukat]

Of course the jpgs are ok, i wrote that IE and Paint can open them.

No need to run checkdisk, its a brand new instalation of the Host system, virtualbox, and guest system, nothing is broken.

No need for Microsoft support, if the same program runs normally on the Host system, which is identical to the guest system.

That all is evidence, that it is a VB problem, and please read carefully, i dont like to waste my time by repeating myself.

The second thing is, that guest IE can not open images in VB shared folder, if you move the files to guest HDD, the files open normally.

[mpack]

I don't like to repeat myself either - so I won't.

[GulDukat]

No need for you to repeat advices which were already proven wrong before, checkdisk didnt find any error, the MD5 checksum of PhotoViewer.dll is the same on host, as it is on the guest system -
254EEFA92A3438879E2A80BD76B0378F, yet it is not running on the virtual system.

As a volunteer, you should listen what people say, or else you are no help.

[Perryg]

My testing shows that the Windows photo viewer (if it can) tries to use accelerated graphics (3D) which is dicey with Windows 7 64-bit in a virtual environment.

• To test this you can disable the 3D/2D settings for the guest and open the image, which for me works. If however you try to open the image with 3D/2D enabled it does not display and even crashes the Windows 7 guest (4.1.0 beta3 with wddm). IIRC the same thing happened in previous version of VirtualBox. Now IE9 has the same problem unless you turn off the access to the GPU in the IE9 settings which should then allow you to open jpg & tiff images. So the question seems to be did you install the guest additions in safe mode and did you select 3D acceleration? If so then this can explain what you are seeing.

However the "PhotoViewer.dll is not a valid Win32 application" sounds more like a failed/corrupt install since this is being reported by Windows and not VirtualBox, and (for me) IE9 can open images from the shared folder as long as you have set the browser to not use the GPU. See FIX: PhotoViewer.dll is not a valid Win32 application

[equake]

I have tried disabling both 2D and 3D but this problem persists.

[Perryg]

I have tried disabling both 2D and 3D but this problem persists.

What version of VirtualBox are you using?

[steveriley]

I can confirm similar behavior.

Host: Kubuntu 11.04 x64, latest NVidia proprietary drivers, VirtualBox 4.1.0 with guest additions.
Guest: Windows 7 x64.

Photo Viewer displays the invalid Win32 application error if the additions are installed without Direct 3D. The error happens regardless of whether 2D or 3D acceleration is enabled in the VM configuration and regardless of how IE's GPU acceleration is configured.

The combination of settings that works for me is to enable Direct 3D in the guest additions and to enable both 2D and 3D acceleration.

Oh, and the symptoms appear for all image types, not just TIFF.