Animated Gifs in Windows Live email

When I used Outlook Express to send emails, I could include Animated Images in the body of the email. I've recently upgraded to Windows 7 and I have tried to do this in Windows Live email but the images are not animated when viewed by the recipient - just a single still image.

Is it possible to include Animated Images within the body of a Windows Live email?

 

Have you placed any animated Gifs in an email message and seen the animation before you send? I did some experimenting with this to see whether I could insert an animated GIF in a Windows Live Mail message and I could not get it work. But, I suspect this is a broader issue than Windows Live Mail. Can you save an animated GIF to your hard drive and view it, with animation showing, in any application, such as Paint, some other photo/image editor, Microsoft Word, etc.? I can not. I also tried putting an animated GIF in a message using Outlook 2007, but could not.

 

Thanks for your reply.
When animated images are placed in the body of a Windows Live mail message, they do not show as being animated. This was the same when placed in Outlook Express emails to be sent, but the animation showed correctly when the OE message was opened by the recipient.

All the animated images which I have in a PC folder, can be viewed 'working' in a program called Irfanview. I don't think that MS Word or Paint are capable of displaying animation.

I feel sure that the problem is within the sending section of Windows Live Mail program - maybe a setting which I don't know about. I tried installing the Mozilla Thunderbird email client and sent an email to myself, which included an animated gif file in the body of the email. When I opened my normal email client - Windows Live Mail, the image appeared correctly animated. The plot thickens................

 

Well, after reading your previous post, I downloaded and installed IrfanView. I then downloaded an animated GIF from http://www.webdeveloper.com/animations/d.html, saved it to my Pictures folder, opened it in IrfanView, which displayed it with animation. I then opened Windows Live Mail, opened a new message panel, inserted the GIF via Insert, Image, Inline, and sent the message to myself. When I received the message with Windows Live Mail image appeared with animation.

Note that when composing the message, the images was still upon inserting it into the message. But, once sent, the message can be opened from the Sent folder and the image is animated.

I tried another image from the same source and simply saved it to Pictures; I did not view it in IrfanView. I inserted it in test message and, again, got animation.

So, I conclude that my mistake from testing noted in my first replay, where I had pasted the image into Paint before saving it, is that Paint destroyed the animation since, as you noted, Paint is not capable of handling animated images.

 

Thanks for your reply.

I tried again using the method you described - which was the method I was using anyway - but the result was the same ie no animation in the received or sent emails.
So, I downloaded a copy of Windows Live email from MS website and re-installed it. Success !! So I can only assume that some kind of bug crept in during my initial installation of Windows 7...............

Thanks again for your time - it is appreciated!