It comes as no surprise that Microsoft’s shiny new Vista has some “issues”. Most of my Windows pals know to wait a few versions before they upgrade, and this one is no exception.

Of course there are the usual problems with software that just doesn’t work right with the new OS. Examples are iTunes, and potentially virus and security products among others. That usually happens and we’re not going to go into the long list here,.

Meta data is another issue. For those of us who use it regularly with Photoshop and other imaging software, we know better than to label images with “embarrassing photo from the client number three”, because it’s conceivable that you could accidentally send that image to the client who would then know how you feel about their photography skills. Now Microsoft will allow you to attach metadata to documents, files and folders as well, making searching easier, but the potential for un-expected information exchange of sensitive material has increased.

Critical for us design folks is how Vista handles metadata in digital images. It eats it.

According to Microsoft’s support page, “When you edit the properties of a photo in Windows Vista, the software for the digital camera may no longer recognize the metadata that is automatically added to the photo”. The same goes for Photoshop. If you’ve changed or added metadata tags in Photoshop, Vista may overwrite them.

The workaround is to not use the new spiffy tool built into the OS. Or Windows Photo Gallery or Windows Explorer. Really.

What are they going to do about it? Well, they expect the camera manufacturers to change the way they write metatags. After all, they’re MICROSOFT, why should they change?

Bottom line? Get a Mac.

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 11th, 2007 at 10:48 am and is filed under Tutorials. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.