Solved Windows 7 Gif Viewer Works perfectly

This program is a dangerous piece of garbage. I installed it and it is nowhere to be found on my computer. Revo or Win 7 control panel does not find it. It just disappeared upon installation into the netherworld of my computer. I fear it may be some new kind of virus. I would strongly advise against installing this software.

It doesn't find it because it's not really a program; it's a dll file, like it was on Windows XP. To remove it, delete rundll32.exe from the root of your Windows installation: Drive C. Don't delete the one in system 32, as that's Windows 7's. You want the one that mentioned, which is from XP, but modified to run on 7. Then go to C:/Windows/System32 and delete shimgvw.dll. These are the only files the program installs, and they are in the "netherworld of your computer" because of the way Microsoft designed the files and made them need to be there. It's not some new virus. It's perfectly safe, and I have been using it for years without problems.

Thank you @Weboh
and @orgdoctor I'm not for sure, but I think somewhere on one of the pages here I say you can unzip the installer with 7zip to see ecxatly what is in in it

Weboh,
Thanks for that information. I have deleted those 2 files (although the second one required me to figure how to take ownership of the file so I could delete it). That was not a pleasant software experience at all.

I have actually found a much better solution to the GIF viewing problem-- a free program called xnview, available here: XnView Software · XnView. It's an .exe that doesn't even have to be installed.

set Window gif viewer to default

I've had some problems understanding your forum answers, so I've set up my own easy answer to finding the old Windows XP gif viewer by default to work automatically.
I downloaded, after several searches in this Forum, for a 'windows gif viewer' that will run automatically [just like windows XP viewer]. So after downloading and installing Windows gif viewer, I found that my 'user account' was being questioned on allowing this unknown publisher to make changes on my pc. each time I double-clicked on the 'gif' image, this box shows up, always having to click 'yes'.
I found a way around that by going into the properties of the program {rundll32.exe} in folder <C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows7GifViewer>, right-click for the properties and selecting the compatibility tab and ticking the box "run this program in compatibility mode for" - 'Windows 7' [my PC] in the drop-down select box. + apply + OK. Going back to my image I right-click on the gif image to select "open with" - to find a default program I want to use which is 'windows photo gallery' and tick the box at the bottom to 'always use this selected program to open this kind of file" ... not windows photo viewer, as 'photo viewer only shows the image not the gif movement. Problem solved. I hope the pics help

Well since this topic was bumped, is their going to be a patch to get this working on windows 10 or can it already work right out of the gate?

I combined three different stuff from this thread to make it work perfect on Windows 10
> Installed the Non-UAC version
> Then Installed the registry file for multi file type
> Changed the .dll with the original one for reasons post #120 mentioned
> Went to the location of the rundll32.exe, changed compatibility to Windows 7 and now it blends with Windows 10 title bar really well and work flawless

works great on windows 10 installin .reg

Worked great for me! Win 7 SP1 64 bit

A hearty thank you to Goofwear (Corgano's input too) and whoever made suggestions
to get this to work successfully.
Following others advice this is what I did ...

Turned off UAC
Installed 'Windows_7_GifViewer' to C Drive (root)

Rt.click C:\rundll32.exe - RUN AS ADMINISTRATOR
Rt. click again - properties - change compatibility mode to Windows Vista

Rt. click - 'register_file_types' - RUN AS ADMINISTRATOR
Dbl. click to install.
(this registry script should associate bmp, jpg, png, and tiff files with the viewer)

REBOOT

Rt. click gif - open with - Windows 7 Gif viewer - check 'always use this'
After this - just dbl. click the gif file and it opens just as it did in XP!

This also works very well and can do more than just view gif files
John Paul Chacha's Lab - Chasys Draw IES - Product Homepage

Just want to say thank you very much for this files

grits said:

It sure would be nice if Goofwear or corgano hadn't abandoned this thread.

Click to expand...

@win8h8r @Dee Dana @Corgano Thank you and every one else who has helped and given their input

oriceles said:

I combined three different stuff from this thread to make it work perfect on Windows 10
> Installed the Non-UAC version
> Then Installed the registry file for multi file type
> Changed the .dll with the original one for reasons post #120 mentioned
> Went to the location of the rundll32.exe, changed compatibility to Windows 7 and now it blends with Windows 10 title bar really well and work flawless

Click to expand...

I have gone back and read over the comments and I will work on putting together a new version for windows 10.

Like I have stated before the rundll32.exe shimgvw.dll were originally taken from a windows xp Service pack 3 iso, there are 32 bit versions.

The 64 bit version of the rundll32.exe is found here Index of ./downloads/64bit/ , using the 64x rundll32.exe on a 64x pc will not give you the uac error.

I choose the root of the C drive because the registry files need to reference the exe and dll. it was a set path without sub directories and easier to work with.

Using 7zip you can right click on my installer and either click open or extract to see the files inside. you can even manually move those files to the C drive and then follow the other about the file permissions and run the registry key.

When I have released the windows 10 version I will post it here and update the first post on page 1

can I get some help with this plz. I looked and don't see the rundll32...I still have Windows 7
ty

If you ran the installer, it should be in C:/
Either type that into the address bar of Windows Explorer, or go to my computer and click on that drive.

I used jarmezrocks' installer, changed the compatibility to windows 7 to stop it from asking for permission every time I opened a gif, and that's all working great for gifs. However, I can't seem to get the other file types (bmp, jpg, jpeg, tif, png) to associate with this.

I tried win8h8r's register_file_types.reg, but then when I clicked a png, it just asked me which program I wanted to open it with. And selecting "windows 7 Gif Viewer" or browsing for "shimgvw.dll" just got me the "filepath.png is not a valid Win32 application" message. So then I manually set each of those extensions back to opening with Windows Photo Viewer.

After that, I attempted to use goofwear's suggestion of editing the gif.reg file from that installer, using find and replace to swap every instance of "GIF" with "PNG", then saved that as png.reg, and ran it, but it appears to have had no effect at all.

I try to keep up, but I'm not really highly skilled or learned in these kinds of areas. The only thing I can think is the part where win8h8r's post mentions "taking ownership" of some files. I have no idea how to do that or where to even find those files. Do I need to do that? If so, how? If not, what else can I do to associate other image files with this XP viewer?

Hi,
People should really use this instead
John Paul Chacha's Lab - Chasys Draw IES - Product Homepage

I can say that the windows 7 gif viewer is working on windows 10 x64 well, no errors, thx ^^
I mean the xp version one.

Thanks to all who developed and contributed to this Gif Viewer!
It is awesome to have again the Gif animations at hand!
One more thing i will really appreciate...
a way to change background color of this viewer.
I am a night owl, so the white makes me blind

Cherwally, you can change that color in Windows. Go to Control Panel>Personalize>Window Color. Then select Window from the menu. Then you can change that color to whatever you want.

If you have a dark theme active, it should change that color automatically. If the back of Windows Explorer is a dark color, GIF Viewer should be too.

Weboh said:

Cherwally, you can change that color in Windows. Go to Control Panel>Personalize>Window Color. Then select Window from the menu. Then you can change that color to whatever you want.

If you have a dark theme active, it should change that color automatically. If the back of Windows Explorer is a dark color, GIF Viewer should be too.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the workaround Weboh!
It kinda do the trick but sincerely i am not that happy to have some fields darken
here and there and the writing still black wich leads to a bad redability.
I'm not using any dark theme yet but i will consider to give them a try.
So...there is no other way on changing the program background except this trick?
I will sure prefer to change some registry to make this change only for this app.