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Windows Picture and Fax Viewer Problem

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by groberts

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Our corporate network is a mix of Windows 2000 and XP. Not by choice, but by vendors changing their product lines.

We currently have 2 Relay Fax servers for incoming and outgoing faxes. When a fax is received it is saved to a network share as a TIF file. The file contains all of the pages, with page breaks, in the fax. When it is opened with the Windows Picture and Fax Viewer ot all of the pages are correctly displayed. Pages 1 and 2 will display OK, but page 3 will not display. Instead page 2 is displayed as page 3. If I view the fax using the Relay Fax Viewer everything is correct.

I tried to change the file association from the windows viewer to the relay fax viewer, but XP never seems to change the association. Or if the association is changed, the file is still opened by the windows viewer.

Has anyone else experienced this problem?

Thanks,
Greg

6 replies

by rightondudenospam!

Yup that's what it does. You need to install the fax viewer client program from your faxing software. I have found the same thing with GFI faxmaker.

You should be able to associate TIF's to open with any program of your choice. Additionally after opening the program once with the fax viewer you should then be able to right click the fax file and choose "open with" and then choose the fax viewer application or select choose program.

by groberts

We did try installing the fax client provided with our software, by Microsoft has embedded the picture and fax viewer so deeply that it still reclaims the association. We ended up calling MS on the issue, and they confirmed it. They also said there was a patch available. We installed the patch, and still have the problem. Our user community has been instructed on how to use the open with until MS release a patch that works.

Thanks for the help

by rightondudenospam!

Hmm, just a thought, but what about renaming your faxviewer program executable to the same exe name as the MS picture and fax viewer executable. Then make it accessable by placing it somewhere in c:\windows or modify the set path= variable. Kinda like pulling a fastone on the O/S.

Not the most recommended way to go about it, but it might be worth a shot!

by groberts

That way may work, but it becomes an administrative nightmare. Even with just 70 PC's. Thanks, for the idea, it is a good one, and if we only had a few PC's we would use it. i think it will work.

One of our help desk people resolved the problem by reregistering the Relay-Fax viewer. But it is not a permenant fix. Every week or 2 the viewer has to be reregistered in the OS. We found reference to this on technet, but it did not have any solutions either.

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