not a valid win32 application

Whenever I double-click a .jpg image in windows explorer I receive,
'image' .jpg is not a valid win32 application.
This even applies to jpgs I've had for years, however I can open the
image in Photoshop I can also see it under 'preview' in explorer.
This started just a couple of days ago......nothing new installed,
not that I know of anyway:
any thoughts

CHEERS!!! ......... GRAHAM

 

I am having the exact same problem Graham. I hope we get some answers soon as it is soooo frustrating! Cheers!

 

I'm guessing you didn't understand what Chaslang said, Delight. Your computer is supposed to have instructions on how to use or open every type of file on your computer; we call this "file associations." It seems like your computer may have lost the instructions for opening jpg files.

First, we'll see if we can get a jpg to open via right clicking and if that works, we'll work on getting the right program opening them automatically again by fixing the file associations.

Try right clicking on a jpg and see if "Open with" comes up as an option. If so and you have a list of possible programs to use, try picking the one you would prefer jpgs to open with and if it isn't there, a logical one. (Even if it suggested Notepad, that would be a bad choice!) Originally they would have opened with the Windows picture viewer but because you have PhotoShop, quite possibly they are supposed to open in that, now. Please note, this most likely won't fix the problem, especially if you're still on XP. We're just trying to see if this works.

If right clicking worked OR if you don't have a list of possible programs to use, there are two possibilities for fixing this easily. First try opening Photoshop and look under the Edit menu for Preferences. If you find that, next look for File Associations; from this point you'll have to do some intelligent guess work because I haven't found much useful information on what comes next. However, someone else here would be able to tell you. If you want to use a program other than Photoshop, same process but Preferences might be under the Tools menu and might be called Options.

Failing that, right click on a jpg again and this time click on "Choose program". Look through the list of programs to see if the one you want is there and if so, select it (but wait, we're not done yet). If not, click on "Browse" and you should find yourself in the Programs folder. To find the correct program, you need to find and open the correct folders until you find the main application for that program. For example, I have a program called VideoReDo and if I browse to the VideoReDo folder, when I get there I see about 10 applications but by two strategies, I can quickly work out which is the right one - firstly, only two of them seem to carry the program's usual logo and of those two, one is called VideoReDo4 and the other is called DVDBurner and when you look more closely, the logo is actual different to what I see when the program starts up. So I must want VideoReDo4. (Your applications might have .exe on the end such as VideoReDo4.exe or might not - doesn't matter if they show .exe or not.)

If you want yours to open with Photoshop, you'll probably find a folder called Adobe and the Photoshop folder will be in there. I don't own it so I can't check for you but this might help you: http://forums.adobe.com/message/5217386 . If you found the program in the list or you've now tracked down the correct application, we're ready to move on. With the program or application selected, look for a box marked "Always use the selected program to open this kind of file" and make sure it's ticked! Now you can click OK. Everything should be fine from now on. If not, post back.

 

Thank you very much Chookers for that very useful info. I appreciate your time.
Thanks again. Cheers!