File Extensions Help

Unable to Display .bmp Picture files in the Windows Media Center Picture Library

You may not be able to display the bitmap (.bmp) image files in the picture library, in the following scenario.

• You are working on a Windows Vista Home Premium or Windows Vista Ultimate computer.
• The folder from which you are trying to view the files only contains .bmp picture files.
• To view the .bmp files from this folder, you launch the Windows Media Center program and try to add the .bmp files from this folder to the Picture Library.
• Finally, you run the Media Center Library Setup Wizard, and add this folder with only .bmp files in it as a watched folder—and still the images do not display in the Picture Library.

Cause of the Problem

Windows Media Player 11 is the default Media Player that is shipped with Windows Vista. The Picture Library of Window Media Player 11 does supports the bitmap and GIF formats. These files, however, are still recognized by Windows Vista.

This is the reason why, while you may be able to view the .bmp and .gif files in Windows Vista Photo Gallery, they will not appear in the Windows Media Player 11 Picture Library.

Additionally, because Windows Media Center needs to use the Windows Media Player 11 engine to manage multimedia files, you may not be able to display the .bmp picture files, even if you add a watched folder in Windows Media Center if this folder contains only bitmap picture files.

Workaround Method

You can easily work around this problem by adding one or more picture files of the formats supported by Windows Media Player 11 in the watched folder comprising only the .bmp files. For example, Windows Media Player 11 supports the JPEG file. So, you can add a .jpeg file, to the .bmp watched folder. When you do this, the folder will display in the Media Center Picture Library. Once this happens, you can view all your bitmap pictures also in the library.