help needed

Hey guys - I have a mate who has a 20D. Up until now, he's shot jpegs, and used the Microsoft wizard to d/l the files to his PC. He has his Canon CD that came with the 20D and asked me for help this morning, thinking it would be easier...well near six hours of pure frustration later...nada...

Anyways, we installed the CD ok, but it has file viewer on it...so, I got him to go to the Canon Australia website and d/l eos utility 2 updater...he meets all of the requirements, he has dpp, file viewer, zoombrowser and the other app (can't remember what it's called) all installed on his PC. They all open OK as well...so they're there, and they're working. Anyways, d/l the eos utility 2 updater and it failed to install - firstly it didn't give him the oceania region, just north america/asia etc, which is odd, because I d/l the same bloody file and get oceania as a regional option...now the install failure reason was something like 'failed to meet environmental requirements' or so I'm told.

So, I thought, we'll try an older version of EOS utility, which of course, is not available on the Canon Australia website anymore...so, here I go, searching from archived backup DVDs to find an earlier version. I set that up on my web server here and get him to d/l it, it which he does. It won't install, says that eos utility is already installed. Odd. I got him to check the start menu again, nothing for it, but there is EOS file viewer utility. That's definitely not it. By this time my mate is pretty damn well pi$$ed off and confused as hell and thinking he's gonna tell RAW where to shove it and go back to jpegs...I got him to search for EOS utility.exe on his C drive, nothing found. I got him to search for *utility*.exe, again, nothing found. Damn well odd. So, I got him to uninstall it all, reboot the PC and reinstall it all and then try installing EOS utility again, nada. Same problem.

So, I got him to connect the 20D to the PC, and go into my computer, he can see the 20D there (he'd already installed the WIA driver successfully). He only had one raw file, which he could see, but the properties of that file shows as "BMP" and I'm like WTF!!! He CANNOT move or copy that file at all to his hard drive. No error messages, it just doesn't do anything.

I've sent him a copy of Microsoft RAW viewer, not even that works. Note, he tells me that he had his 20D set to RAW+jpeg, I've never used this combination before on either my 1D or D60, so not sure if that does odd things. If so, can someone let me know.

Anyways, he's to the point where he's simply going to go back to shooting jpegs, even though he really wants to shoot RAWs. Oh, and Photoshop CS2 won't open that RAW file from his 20D either, it says no RAW files on the camera. I sent him a link to Adobe camera raw 4 and he d/l and installed that, but no luck. I sent him a RAW file of mine (from the D60) and DPP and Photoshop CS2 can both read the file...

So, the main issues are why the hell won't EOS utility install at all...when it should. What the hell is going on with this RAW file on his 20D? Any suggestions? He doesn't have a card reader btw...if I can get the RAW files working OK and displaying OK on the PC, he can just simply copy the RAW files from the 20D to wherever he wants on his PC and open them in DPP etc. No, I don't have remote access to his PC, and he doesn't live locally, not even close. I'm in Sydney, he's in Melbourne and I'm not planning any trips soon He's not super computer literate, but he's not dumb either, I'm pretty positive that he's done nothing wrong, could it be that Microsoft has screwed something up (wouldn't be the first time imho)?

Any help/suggestions appreciated.

Dave

No Luck Dave

Yikes. Maybe time to reinstall the OS and all his apps. Or upgrade to a new PC perhaps. Maybe the 20D needs to be checked. Can you try his 20D on your PC Dave?

Good idea! I've never heard of getting a .bmp file from a Canon? That a microsoft format.
Random, probably useless thought... he is using Win XP, right?

Very long shot: Shooting RAW and jpg, and then using the camera to connect to the PC, can give problems: Click. Totally different, yet maybe related?

Agreed René - but let's be realistically logical here, this makes absolutely no sense. For the WIA driver to show RAW, but nor RAW/jpeg is plain silly on Canon's part. Yeah, I know the WIA driver doesn't officially support showing RAW files, but still, it's just plain silly. This is why I'm a firm support of open communication formats such as UMS:

http://en.wikipedia.or​g/wiki/UMS

You should *never ever ever* need proprietary drivers to simply be able to access the data. Reading it is a different story, but accessing it. The interesting thing is I am able to read RAW files for both my 1D and D60 via explorer (haven't tried RAW+jpeg to see what happens).

Either way, Lawrie has DPP 3 installed, we've tried to install EOS Utility 1.x and 2 and neither will install, saying that it's already installed. It isn't.

I have always found Canon's software to be totally crap, it's one of the worst sets of software I've ever seen in my entire career in IT. It's one of the reasons why I'm forking out a lot of extra money to go with Capture One Pro and Downloader Pro - so I can get rid of this $hit off my system. Canon's support is totally useless (from my experience). Maybe I should send a bill to Canon for six hours of my support at $120/hour (going rate) for the time I spent trying to get it all working with Lawrie.

René (and others) - let's look at the problem from a slightly different angle. Would you agree that only the WIA driver (for camera communication) and Adobe Photoshop CS2/Camera RAW should be needed to view ANY RAW files from the camera? Even shooting RAW only, Lawrie cannot access the RAW files. Either via explorer, or Photoshop CS2. I uploaded a RAW file of mine to my web server locally and Lawrie downloaded this and was able to open it fine in DPP.

Lawrie - my suggestion is to backup all data, wipe the system and reinstall (reasons below).

My suspicion is that the registry is screwed on Lawrie's system. This is probably because Canon's (and others) uninstallation programs do NOT remove every single piece of file or entry for the application. I have tried very nicely to ask Canon to provide me with a list of every single file that is installed, so that I can remove them totally from my system, but Canon will not co-operate. I will probably take legal action against Canon and force them to do this. I will then make this list public knowledge. I do not see anywhere in the license agreement about it restricting knowledge of where and what files are installed, and this is most certainly not reverse engineering (which is allowed for fair use anyways under both the Copyright and DMCA acts respectively). I might just see my local chamber of magistrate about this.

Please note that I prefer to use open systems, and open standards, it's my Linux background you see. I don't like proprietary systems, nor do I like proprietary formats. They are bad for the people. On a Debian GNU/Linux system I can remove every single piece of entry/file to an application by simply typing this command from a terminal:

apt-get remove --purge packagename

That simple. And every *single* file is gone. True, GNU/Linux doesn't use stupid things like a 'registry', everything is in a plain text file. In fact, I was able to use dcraw/ufraw/GIMP to open RAW files nicely. I was able to connect my D60 to a Linux box, mount it, and retrieve all files without issue (again, I didn't test RAW/jpeg). So, I agee that some of the problem is Microsoft Window's inability to be useful operating system.

Dave

Well, I don't have any of these problems. Might be because I'm on a Mac

hahaha René - I also own a Mac (PowerMac G4 1ghz), but alas, Lawrie doesn't. If only life were that simple

Dave

Have you tried using a card reader? (sorry if I missed that in posts above.)

I never use Canon's software for downloading to computer, and I've never shoot tethered other than playing around... but DPP, I think is a good piece of Canon's software, excellent for a "free" RAW converter.

dpastern wrote in post #3185420
René (and others) - let's look at the problem from a slightly different angle. Would you agree that only the WIA driver (for camera communication) and Adobe Photoshop CS2/Camera RAW should be needed to view ANY RAW files from the camera? Even shooting RAW only, Lawrie cannot access the RAW files. Either via explorer, or Photoshop CS2. I uploaded a RAW file of mine to my web server locally and Lawrie downloaded this and was able to open it fine in DPP.

Although we all may agree that this should be all you need, perhaps Canon deos not. For whatever reasons it seems that trying to use the camera as a device for copying/moving files from the camera to the PC does not work. Everyday it seems we (members of POTN) are telling people to get a card reader for their RAW files. The reasons are simple, it works and it is faster.

I agree that it seems to be time for a fomat C:/. Software designers design their removal instructions to leave some registry files as they might be needed for other software on your PC. For instance perhaps you installed the EOS Utility Viewer AND ZoomBrowser. Both software packages may use a common registry file to keep the registry less cluttered. If you remove the EOS Utility Viewer but retain ZoomBrowser and the software removed every single file pertaining to the EOS Utility Viewer then ZoomBrowser would not function.

David - Lawrie doesn't have a card reader - at the moment. I am trying to talk him into getting one though

Mike - I'm sure it's a windows thing. On Linux, I can view files from my D60 and 1D without any issues. NO proprietary Canon drivers, no proprietary Canon software. It works, works well, without issues. Why should life be so difficult for those using Microsoft Windows?

I also agree with your comments about registry files etc, and again, I'll hark that that's due to VERY bad design by Microsoft. The Windows registry was one of the worst things they ever did imho. DLL files are another one. If you've ever used a UNIX or UNIX like system, you'll realise that text config files are a blessing, and the file structure is also a blessing (bin, sbin, usr/sbin, /lib etc). Again, Microsoft bollocksed up what UNIX has been doing right for so long...

I'm not a fan of Microsoft Windows, it's a poorly designed system, with poor performance, reliability and security. I've used everything from BEOS (limited experience) to BSD, OS X, OS 9, GNU/Linux and Windows compares poorly to all of them in some many categories. And it's this poor performance that leads to such problems as above imho, causing unneccessary angst from users.

Dave

I'm a Linux, and open-source fan myself...

My biggest problem with it though, is (at least I haven't found) color management. That's gets to be a big issue as you get more involved with digital photography and editing. So "viewing" the images is only half the problem... quality editing is another.(Linux has its serious flaws too, though, getting wi-fi to work with my laptop was a good 12-hour journey, at least in Linux, and its still flakey.)

For all the problems and frustration Windows gives, it is still the most devloped for OS, meaning alot more Opensource or freeware utilities too, so it gets to be a balancing act.

Before doing an open heart surgery to cure a hiccup, spending 3 to 4 hours doing a OS reinstall would be a waste of time when a $10 solution is available. I have two Canon, 300D & S2IS, and I don't have any Canon SW on my PC and is very happy w/ that. I download using Media One via card reader and convert w/ C One Pro and PP w/ PSCS2.

David - I know some things aren't perfect on Linux, colour management and wi fi amongst them. Colour management needs to be improved, and wi fi is slowly getting better. I've heard very good things about Ubuntu 7.0.4 and wi fi. The problem with wi fi (and many other hardware devices) is that they are closed and proprietary source, it's very, and time consuming to develop open source drivers for hardware that you can't even see the specs of!

The whole proprietary software industry is a sham, and I can't wait for the day when things are righted and softare patents are banned, copyrights reduced to a maximum of 25 years from the date of creation and the horrible DMCA sees the dust. None of these help the people, and all of these are against the spirit of public domain, which was created to benefit the people, both scientifically and culturally. It really does make me wonder - current governments solely listen to business, and not the people, but business doesn't have any rights to vote. The sooner that the average person starts waking up and realising this, and demanding, and enforcing their rights, the better. It's a slow process, that will see the current breed of politicians, and business fight tooth and nail. The people will win in the end, lest we be stuck in a dictatorship.

Dave

davidcrebelxt wrote in post #3189970
I'm a Linux, and open-source fan myself...

My biggest problem with it though, is (at least I haven't found) color management. That's gets to be a big issue as you get more involved with digital photography and editing. So "viewing" the images is only half the problem... quality editing is another.(Linux has its serious flaws too, though, getting wi-fi to work with my laptop was a good 12-hour journey, at least in Linux, and its still flakey.)

For all the problems and frustration Windows gives, it is still the most devloped for OS, meaning alot more Opensource or freeware utilities too, so it gets to be a balancing act.