Illegal Operation! Fatal Exception!
Error, Error Will Robinson!
Accent on Computers to the rescue! 203-625-7575.
November 17, 2006
Photo Finishing
Dear Larry,
I work with a lot of Photo CDs and many of them try to load
software on my computer when I insert them into my machine. Is this software
safe? Is it important?
S. F.
Dear S. F.,
This is a good example of obnoxious behavior on the part of
the computer software industry; foisting their software on unsuspecting
computers and computer users. Not only is most of this software completely
unnecessary, but a lot of it is programmed to reside permanently in your
computer’s memory, ultimately contributing to your computer getting slower and
slower over time. Be wary of this stuff trying to auto-load its way onto your
PC! And rely on the following steps to manually and safely copy the pictures
from the CD onto your computer without the need for any of this extra software.
1. Just Say No Insert the picture CD into your computer.
Cancel anything that pops up onto your screen within the next ten seconds
including slideshows, software installations, and warning messages.
2. Bypass the Garbage Click the My Computer icon on your
desktop or click Start, then click My Computer. Identify the icon in the My
Computer window that represents the photo CD; it may be labeled PHOTOCD,
PICTURES, KODAKCD, or something along those lines. Expect the drive letter in
parentheses following the label to probably be D:, E:, or F:. Right-click on
this icon, then left-click Open. This will give you access to the CD without
having to run the software installation.
3. Find Your Photos Look for the folder that houses the photos
and left-click it. The folder is probably labeled something like “PICTURES” or
“PHOTOS.” It may be buried in another folder on the CD so there’s slight
possibility you may need to hunt for it.
4. Copy the Pictures Assuming you want to copy all of the
pictures from the CD, click Edit, Select All (or simply press CTRL+A on your
keyboard) to highlight all the photos. Then copy them by clicking Edit, Copy or
by pressing CTRL+C on your keyboard. (Note: Nothing will appear to happen when
you perform the Copy command.)
5. Create a Home for Your Pictures Open the My Pictures folder
on your computer. You can do so by clicking Start, My Pictures or by clicking a
Pictures shortcut on your desktop if you have one or in your Documents folder if
one resides there. Create a new folder to house the photos from the CD: Click
File, New, Folder, and type a name for the folder such as “2006-12-01 Pictures
from Holiday CD.”
6. Complete the Copy Open the new folder that you created in
step 5 (obviously, it should be empty!) and paste in the files you copied in
step 4. To do so, click Edit, Paste or press CTRL+V.
You did it! This may seem to be a somewhat complicated
procedure, but in fact it’s a series of very fundamental computer techniques. So
remember: Practice Makes Perfect!
This is Larry Schneider, logging off.
