Any RAW viewers for Windows Vista?

I recently bought a new computer because I wanted more RAM. Now working with 4gigs of ram and it is wonderful. Only thing that really sucks is I can not view any of my RAW images on windows because I can not download the RAW viewer for Windows because it wont let me install because it says it has known compatibilitie issues and is for XP.

OK, so my question is, where do I find a raw viewer for Windows? I want to be able to see the images in their files and not have to open a program to find one file to open a picture.

Shouldnt this have been something Windows included in their upgrade? A built in RAW viewer? If I could figure out how, and if I didnt need XP discs I would seriously consider to downgrade VistSUCKYa back to XP.

Any help you can offer would be greatly apprceiated.

I installed the Canon RAW codec in Vista and it works perfectly.

Here you go: http://www.canon.ca …nl%26p%5Fsort%5​Fby%3Ddflt

It's called the Canon Raw Codec 1.2

I use FastStone Image Viewer on XP. It's great - I use it as the default viewer instead of the windows viewer.

It views 30D and earlier RAW files directly, dunno about 40D and 1Dmk3.

Haven't tried it on the Vista machine yet, but they say it works. I'm sure it does.

http://www.faststone.o​rg/FSViewerDownload.ht​m

-js

I also use Faststone on Vista, works very well.

My Vista shows RAW fine in file explorer and when you double click they open in windows photo gallery. You don't need a 3rd party viewer.

I don't remember installing anything but I did see this that may help you:

http://www.pcmag.com …le2/0,1759,2103​348,00.asp

I use the Fast STone Image viewer which I fond fantastic and it is FREE to download. I use XP but the site (http://www.faststone.o​rg/index.htm) says the product works for Vista. After a month or so it asks you to send a donation and I have.

It does a remarkable range of stuff and for loading to my web gallery I pick the RAW shots I want and then convery them top jpeg, resize, add a watermark and rename, then save to a special directory, all in one operation.

I found it because I could not affor another expensive program and it really works.

irfanview works great, and its freeware and very versitile and flexable.

The OP doesn't want to open them in another program - The Canon Raw Codec is the way to go to just view them in explorer like any other image file, although it doesn't show DNG files.

I just installed the Canon RAW codec in Vista. It was easy and quick and I can now see my RAW in Windows Explorer. Thanks for the tip, folks!

Moppie wrote in post #5267033
Here you go: http://www.canon.ca …nl%26p%5Fsort%5​Fby%3Ddflt

It's called the Canon Raw Codec 1.2

Thanks for the tips! I usually ugo back to Lightroom to view RAW, but this is much easier.

Thanks for the links guys, I usually would use Adobe Bridge CS2 and the pictures would show up too small for my liking...I'm downloading the codec right now.

Thanks all who give me help. And thanks Moppie especially. It worked! Thanks.
Busy week, but thanks all the same even if it is 5 days late.

I just tried installing the Codec on Windows Vista 64-bit edition- but it doesn't work I'm afraid.
Other Canon software works fine.

Glad I asked this question before, it came in really handy when I had a error and had to change something.