The latest version of IrfanView is now available for download, bringing the latest version to 4.20. This release contains a number of added features and bug fixes. There do not appear to be any security concerns at play, but you might as well have the latest and greatest, right? I mean, it's not like upgrading software ever causes a problem, right, TC? ;^)
IrfanView, if you don't already know, is a free image-viewing program. I originally installed it years ago because I was annoyed at how long it took the default Windows programs to launch just to view an image file. IrfanView is fast, fast. I've never come across anything that beats it in time elapsed between double-clicking a file icon and seeing the picture. It has an enormous number of tools built in, too, to handle just about every basic task you could imagine in dealing with image files. The basic program is tiny -- the installation file is not much bigger than 1 MB. Optional plugins are also available, as a separate download. I've never tried these -- the basic program does everything I've ever wanted it to do.
One thing to watch out for: During the installation process, you'll be asked if you want to install the Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer. Annoyingly, the "yes" box is pre-checked, meaning that if you just keep clicking the "next" button during installation, you'll end up with something you might not want. Other than that, the upgrade was painless.
[added] CNet has some helpful tips and tricks for using IrfanView: how to do red-eye removal, how to ease photo management by making thumbnails, and how to resize your pictures for more polite emailing.
4 comments:
Do you need to uninstall the previous version before upgrading to Irfanview 4.20? The author's website doesn't seem to say anything about it.
It's been a while, but I am more than 99% sure that I did not, and that I just blasted the new version on top of the old one.
Also, if I have to uninstall a previous version before installing a new one, I'm pretty good about noting that when I blog about it, since these days, that is the exception, not the rule.
Good luck. Let me know how it goes, please.
Actually I already did (uninstall the old version), just to be on the safe side. Unfortunately the installer hung on the last screen, as it said something about Google Toolbar installing (which I'd blocked access via the pc firewall)...I thought I had deselected both those items; unless they were rechecked by default when I navigated backwards to that same page to double-check something.
Hopefully it was a technicality and the program is running okay -- I haven't had time or opportunity to test it yet. I didn't choose to associate many file types with it as some are integral components of Windows (e.g., .bmp files); also I didn't want to risk editing some image files by accident. Safer to browse them in Windows Picture and Fax Viewer. I figure I can always reload them in Irfanview via the shell menu if I need to make some quick edits.
Thanks for checking back in.
Yeah, bundling that opt-out-required toolbar is an annoyance, isn't it?
I guess if I had had the same experience as you, I might have just tried running the installation again, possibly uninstalling first.
As far as the file associations go, I have just about every image file type associated with IrfanView. This hasn't caused me a problem with mistaken edits. Remember that if you change the file (by mistake or not), you still have to consciously save it, which means you get a prompt from IrfanView asking you if you want to overwrite the existing file.
Now that I think about it, I guess I still have BMP files associated with Paint, from a time when I was messing around with pixel-level editing to make icons. The reason I bring this up is that you mention that they are "integral components of Windows," and I wanted to point out that Paint is not called to open a BMP file every time one is used by Windows or some other program. I think the opening and display of a BMP file that's part of, say, the GUI for a Windows program is opened directly by that program (and/or ultimately by Windows), no matter what associations you have specified. That is, there's sort of a lower level process at work in this case that's different from the case of you explicitly wanting to display (or edit) an image file yourself. Therefore, there's no reason to expect that changing the association to IrfanView would cause any problems.
Not telling you how to run your system, of course. And if you don't mind the time it takes Windows Picture and Fax Viewer to launch, you don't have the same primary motivation for using IrfanView as I did in the first place. (I have an old system, so every bit of speed I can find, I want.)
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