Having a few problems here, nothing major. But they are annoying just the same. Not sure if they are connected or not. So maybe some of you might be able to tell.

1. PICTURES.

Any and all picture/jpeg files on my desktop will not open. I double click on the icon and the entire screeen will flash white for a fraction of a second. But the file will not open. HOWEVER, pictures located inside a folder (i.e. on another drive) WILL open. Also while the pictures on the deckstop will not open, I can successfully view them as attachments to an e-mail or message board. Likewise, I can view them when opened through my picture program (ArcSoft PhotoImpression 5).

2. DOWNLOADING PICTURES OFF MY CAMERA.

This one is a beauty. I am running on my PC DImage Viewer. It's the software that came with the camera and is apparently an Apple program. Up until a few days ago, I had no problems running it. I connected the USB cord to the camera and the port, double clicked the icon, and off it went. Now when I double click it, it opens up, attempts to load for about 3 seconds then I get the "It needs to shut down. An unexpected error occurred" screen. So I tried right clicking the icon, following the 'Run As' prompt using the Administrator. Then, I can get the pictures to load off the camera. They load as thumbnails. As soon as I click on one of them to view the picture full size, I get a blank gray screen displaying only a dialog error box saying "cannot create image".

For now, as a workaround, I still connect the USB cord, but instead open ArcSoft and retrieve the pictures from "external drive". It allows me to view, process, and move the pictures. But it's a lot more tedious to do it that way.

I even opened up my QuickTime program which came with the DImage viewer, downloaded all current free updates for Windows (am running XP w/ Norton Antivirus/Spyware/Firewall).

Done the usual cold and hard reboots, but to no avail.

Any ideas?

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MD-Exactly what does 'an error occured' mean anyway and why would it happen arbitraily?

Quoting Matt D (Thread starter): Exactly what does 'an error occured' mean anyway and why would it happen arbitraily?

In these days, there are so many lines of code and so many different processes going on even within one program that there can not be a description of every single problem, so a generic one is used. Also, most are so technical that most people wouldn't even have a clue what it's talking about.

As for your problems - sorry I can't help you there. I am a PC guru, but have never experienced either problem nor heard about them. Hopefully someone can.

Quoting Matt D (Thread starter): Any ideas?

While I have the greatest of respect for standalone Apple machines, I will not allow their software on my computers and they take over all media without permission in my experience.

Tell me, did your problem start when you loaded your camera software?