What is it they always say, “Never use version 1″. Good advice, particularly when considering upgrading an operating system. I switched to Mac but I still need to have one foot in the Microsoft camp. It turns out Windows Vista Destroys Photo Metadata. This news doesn’t add any incentive to upgrade.
A bit of bad news about Vista if you’re a photographer. Apparently if you tag a photo’s metadata in Vista, it destroys other important metadata used by image editing apps such as Photoshop. Microsoft’s gotten reports of RAW files generated by Nikon cameras being unreadable after being tagged with Vista or Microsoft’s Photo Info tool.
Now before the anti-Microsoft crowd start foaming at the mouth or the pro-Microsoft guys lynch me, this is not all Microsofts fault. If only the camera manufacturers would produce a standardised format perhaps cockups like this wouldn’t happen?
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The hope would be Microsoft would have no excuse for not understanding the format then. It has to be said the same accusation has been levelled at photoshop too.
Another good reason not to update (yet).
Are you kidding?
If camera manufacturers agreed on a format, Microsoft’s obliterating of the metadata in THAT format would be OK?
I’m not all that enamored of a standard format. Standard formats are often the lowest common denominator (though certainly not always). It’s great in principal and if they did it Right ™, that would be nice.
But Vista trampling metadata is unrelated to the lack of a standard format.
Actually, given the fact that Nikon provided the Codec (you even download it and the update from Nikon’s own site) that Vista uses to read and write the meta-data / EXIF information. You could even place the blame at Nikon’s feet..
I’ve been using Vista for about 4 months (MSDN), the only issue I’ve had photographically speaking is that neither Adobe Essentials nor DXO run under Vista. Capture NX, Photoshop, Lightroom etc. all work great.
You may want to rephrase your headline. Using the Photo Info tool has NOTHING to do with Vista. It also runs on WinXP. You will only be affected if you try to update metadata using the tool, REGARDLESS of whether it is Vista or XP.