Can't Open jpg File in Win 8.1

Hi,

I'm trying to open up an attachment I received. I can open all other jpg's fine, not this one. I've made sure Windows Photo Viewer open is set to open jpg's and tried opening with other apps, but I keep getting an error saying that:

'Windows Photo Viewer can't open this picture because either Photo viewer doesn't support this file format or you don't have the latest updates to Photo Viewer.'

I've tried opening it with Paint also, but get the following error message:
Paint cannot read this file.
This is not a valid bitmap file, or it's format is not currently supported.

Can anybody help me out please?

Someone renamed an exe file as a jpg?...

You can double check to see if it really is an exe file.

1) Open up Notepad
2) Drag that file into Notepad and wait for it to load
3) Look at the first few characters of the file
. a) If you see MZ then it is an exe file. It might be a virus if you downloaded it from an untrusted place, but no worries, just do not rename it to an exe file then opening it. Don't do that.
. b) If you see JFIF then it is a jpg file. See if you can find some free online jpg repair tool or something.

pepanee said:

You can double check to see if it really is an exe file.

Click to expand...

The manner you give to check works well - I've done it many time to try to figure out what something is and/or contains.

But there are probably a gajillion tools available for download that can analyze a file - regardless naming - and tell you what a file is and if it's broken. I haven't ever tried to get one off the 'Net myself, but I'd bet there are plenty of free ones with easy interfaces. Would make for a nice addition to a "toolkit".

But Notepad - my go-to multipurpose utility - works well to see readable strings in a binary file.

Haha, yea, the post above this one is right, I'm sure there's lots of tools out there, you can also try that first. Hope you figure out what's wrong with it and are able to find an alternate picture that you were expecting to work =)

But also keep in mind: If this email was not from someone you know, and from some random person, then you're better off not saving those pictures from the email. It would be safer to find those pictures online and downloading them from there.

Wildcat said:

Hi,

I'm trying to open up an attachment I received. I can open all other jpg's fine, not this one. I've made sure Windows Photo Viewer open is set to open jpg's and tried opening with other apps, but I keep getting an error saying that:

'Windows Photo Viewer can't open this picture because either Photo viewer doesn't support this file format or you don't have the latest updates to Photo Viewer.'

I've tried opening it with Paint also, but get the following error message:
Paint cannot read this file.
This is not a valid bitmap file, or it's format is not currently supported.

Can anybody help me out please?

Click to expand...

Hi:

MS-Paint gave me the answer: I got error message "Can't open file - Path is too long."
I am very structured in my photo classification. Some of my photos were classified down to 8+ levels of sub-directories, with level 1 name starting with 1., level 2 with 1.1..., level 8 with 1.1.1.1.1.1.1.1, and each level with dozens of characters for the name of the subdirectory, surely going over the 255-character limit to identify a file. I changed level 8 sub-directory to A, B..., thereby reducing the total file name below the 255 characters. Then I was able to open the jpegs at level 8 with MS-Paint and Ms-Windows Photo Viewer. Youpie! Bottom line: The way I think it works is you have to keep file name size below 255 characters (all characters count from the top "My computer" to the name of the file at the lowest sub-directory). MS strings all those names into a comprehensive file name that mustn't go over 255 characters.