XP had Fax & Picture viewer (I think it was called), does Vista have an
equivalent?
Yep, it is called Photo Galley. It should open common image file types
by default if you click on the file from within Explorer.
Try this:
1. Go to Explorer. On the tools menu, double click on the little icon
just to the left of the word views or click on the little arrow and
use the slider to show thumbnails.
2. If you double click a file Photo Galley should open full screen
showing a larger picture of the file you clicked on. Now click
on Fix and you get some basic image tools at the far right.
3. The other options allow you to annotate the file far more then
you could in XP.
Now click on Organize, then Layout. Pick your favorite setting. I
personally like Detail Pane on. This will show a larger, user
controller copy of whatever file is currently selected from the list.
You should see a strong color contrast when the list of thumbnails
appears in the top portion of the right window pane and the bottom
poriton. Hover your mouse over this junction. You should see a double
headed arrow. Hold your left mouse button down while dragging up or
down to resize the Detail Pane size.
You can also annotate some file features from here.
If you prefer to open some other image editing application to edit
your photos, you can click on Edit and some of your other application
you've already used to view pictures should be a option. That is also
true from the expanded window that open when you view a indvidual
picture. Just click on open and again you can choose which of your
application to use to edit the photo, like I see Photoshop Image Ready
and Paint listed.
All and all Microsoft did a nice job of improving this all section of
Windows.