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View Full Version : Microsoft Photo Editor, Free with Win98/ Me



Heather
03-25-2004, 12:31 PM
I am looking for a program I used to use before I upgraded to Win2000. On Win98 and then ME as well, I had a graphics program that came along with Paint for free from Microsoft. It's called Microsoft Photo Editor. It's simple to use and I found I could make transparent gifs of my pictures so easily. I can hardly understand the new programs and all that layers stuff so I just need this old program back. After searching on google just now, it says the program didn't come with Windows but came with Office 97 as a tool. Well, I had done all that upgrading together so I don't know where the program came from but I do know it's old and it's simple and basic and good. Can someone tell me where to find it online?
Thanks!
Heather

locustfurnace
03-25-2004, 12:36 PM
Yes,that program did not come free with the OS, there is not much bundled free with the Windows OS.
There are ample freeware titles listed on this forum, if you want a free title, other than that, the title your requesting must have been an intergrated app with Office, then it can not be offered for free.

Freeware Editors list in previous threads (http://www.oldversion.com/talk/index.php?act=ST&f=3&t=1382)


Originally posted by http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?...b;EN-US;q169938 (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q169938)
Microsoft Photo Editor ships with Microsoft Office 97 and the stand-alone versions of Microsoft Word 97 and Microsoft PowerPoint 97 Microsoft Photo Editor is installed when you perform a custom or complete installation from the compact disc It does not ship with the stand-alone versions of Microsoft Excel 97 Microsoft Access 97 or as part of the Microsoft Office 97 ValuPack

webmastership
03-25-2004, 12:55 PM
I have Office 2000 and the photo editor is no longer with it. Did they just delete it from everywhere and it can no longer be used anywhere except for folks that only run the old program?

Thanks again,
Heather

locustfurnace
03-25-2004, 01:02 PM
The only people who could run it would be valid Office 97/2000 license holders. (edit: confirmed Office 2000 does include)
What did they do with the software? Good question. It might have just be soemthing they decided not to support/develop any longer.
Or it could have been part of their anti-trust ruling to stop developing it. As that would be another area monopolized. I never used the app myself, so I am unaware of the status. But Ms has an odd way off removing apps, making them disappear, then in a few years bringing them back to life as "innovation", such as the paper-clip & dog in MS Office, which first started out in MS Bob.

Alot of apps do not do gif compresion, due to the past copyright issues with the developers, Compuserve. Since the compression is patented by Unisys, they charge a license for any program which carrys the gif compression. So alot of programs will opt not to carry it.
an alternative to gif is png and mng.

License Information on GIF and Other LZW-based Technologies (http://www.unisys.com/about__unisys/lzw/)The fact that a product includes a notice regarding the need for a Unisys license (or a statement that the software is "freeware") should NOT be relied on to avoid liability, since the distributor may not in fact be authorized to distribute the LZW software and may itself also be subject to liability along with the recipient.

PNG (http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/)
So what is PNG, and why is it worthy of its own home site? PNG (pronounced ``ping'') is the Portable Network Graphics format, a format for storing bitmapped (raster) images on computers. Unofficially its acronym stands for ``PNG's Not GIF.'' PNG was designed to be the successor to the once-popular GIF format, which became decidedly less popular right around New Year's Day 1995 when Unisys and CompuServe suddenly announced that programs implementing GIF would require royalties, because of Unisys' patent on the LZW compression method used in GIF. Since GIF had been showing its age in a number of ways even prior to that, the announcement only catalyzed the development of a new and much-improved replacement format..

A Basic Introduction to PNG Features (http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/pngintro.html)

Multiple-image Network Graphics (MNG) (http://www.libpng.org/pub/mng/)
A PNG-like Image Format Supporting Multiple Images, Animation and Transparent JPEG. Some Features; way better compression than GIF animations, support for difference (or ``delta'') images for still better compression. integration of both PNG and JPEG-based (``JNG'') images

Guest
03-25-2004, 01:49 PM
Phot Editor is an option. It has to be selected in the setup of Office. If you selected the standard install, it didn't get installed. Run the setup program. Select add or remove features. It's in Tools.

locustfurnace
03-25-2004, 02:37 PM
Thats good, I do see it listed on the Office 2000 CD.

Jaime Andrés
03-25-2004, 03:05 PM
It's also on Office XP pro, I've just checked my CD.