Forwarded Paint dialog and PDF Creator don't work

[vity]

Welcome,

I would like to report two problems in recent versions of IrfanView.

OS: Windows XP Home with Service Pack 3 (x86)
Hardware: AMD Athlon XP (with SSE, but no SSE2)

Problem 1: Show Paint dialog (F12) doesn't work on my computer. When I run it, program hangs up with error message:

AppName: i_view32.exe
AppVer: 4.4.4.0
ModName: paint.dll
ModVer: 0.4.13.73
Offset: 000089fe

I guess that Paint dialog requires now SSE2 processor as I got similar error for other software and turned out it was related to SSE2 and new Visual Studio compiler. The option "Installed PlugIns" crashes either because of PAINT.DLL, unless I remove this file. If I am right about it, any chance you could fix Paint dialog for such specific CPU (AMD Athlon XP) in next version of IrfanView?

Problem 2: I can't create PDF from the option "Create Multipage PDF... (PlugIn)". The first window starts fine, but when I click on the "Compression" it says that "Can't load PlugIn: PDF.DLL", although this library is installed. "Installed PlugIns" indicates that PDF.DLL has unknown version (maybe 64 bit ?). I would be glad if you could fix this too, please. Or at least, how can I use old ImPDF.DLL instead of PDF.DLL in v4.44? I tried to replace both files, but no success at all. The last time when ImPDF.DLL was default plugin in IrfanView and worked perfectly for me was v4.41.

Other question, by the way. Why the toolbar button "Current directory index" was turned off by default in recent versions? It's very useful feature and not taking much GUI space. I know where to turn it on, but other users may be confused. It would be nice to bring it back by default.

Thanks in advance for your attention and possible reply.

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

You can disable the new PDF plugin in Settings, Plugins, PDF Options.

[vity]

I can't load "PDF Options" too, even though PDF.DLL from correct package (irfanview_plugins_444_setup.exe) is installed. IrfanView recognize this PDF.DLL as Unknown (maybe 64 bit ?).

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

I can't load "PDF Options" too, even though PDF.DLL from correct package (irfanview_plugins_444_setup.exe) is installed.

Delete the PDF.DLL and try again.

I think that Irfan Skiljan still wants to support users of this obsolete Operating System as there's still a significant number of users, but plugins are likely to break. You're welcome to send him a bug report (Help menu, About IrfanView), but I cannot be bothered to boot up my old PC to test this, and although it's an AMD processor with XP SP3, I don't think it suffers from the SSE2 issue.

If you want to use an old OS, stick to using old software too and you will have fewer issues. If IV 4.38 works OK for you, use that.

If you were a developer of free software, how much time would you spend supporting Windows XP?

[vity]

You're welcome to send him a bug report (Help menu, About IrfanView)

Done.

If you were a developer of free software, how much time would you spend supporting Windows XP?

I don't find reasons to stop supporting it.

[Kuki Dent]

If you want to use an old OS, stick to using old software too and you will have fewer issues. If IV 4.38 works OK for you, use that.

I fully agree with that point of view.
However, let me quote from IrfanViews 'i_about.txt':
"IrfanView is a very fast, compact and innovative FREEWARE image viewer/converter
for Windows 9x/ME/NT/2000/XP/2003/Vista/Windows 7/Windows 8/Windows 10."
So there is an issue if IrfanView has a problem with an - in my view - obsolete operating system.

Just my two cent.