UPDATED 5.24.2010 - (See new information on Windows 7 at the end of this post. You can now use Photo Story 3 in Windows 7 without virtual XP Mode!!! Click here to read the blog on Windows 7) –
One of our favorite things at the Senior Health Foundation Computer lab is to pass along creative things you can do with your photographs. We have lots of classes that involve your pictures (Using Your Digital Camera, Photoshop Elements Basics, More Photoshop Elements, Using Your Digital Pictures, Creative Word Processing, just to name a few… you can check out latest class schedule, here). Of these, one of our favorites is Using Your Digital Pictures, and specifically, the class session where we teach you about one of the best FREE programs Microsoft ever developed, Photo Story 3.
The great thing about Photo Story 3 is that it lets you EASILY create slide shows from your photo’s. I know, I know… EASY is always a “relative” word. But honestly, this program is REALLY easy to use. It’s easy enough that we can teach you everything you’d ever want to know about Photo Story in ONE 2-hours class. Plus, the slideshows you get are very nice and can include some great “bells and whistles” (music, narration, transitions, pan-and-zoom, etc.). The program doesn’t not automatically come with Windows, so you have to download and install it yourself, but hey… it’s still FREE!
The only down-side to Photo Story 3 is that it won’t let you directly create a set-top playable DVD. But there’s even an answer to that… for $19.95 you can download a great Photo Story add-on from Sonic (Roxio now owns them).
Ah, life is good, isn’t it.
But wait…. I have Windows Vista, and I don’t see that Vista is listed as a version of Windows that Photo Story will work with! What now?
Well the fact is… Photo Story 3 DOES work with Windows Vista. It’s just that Microsoft has decided to “give” you other slide show options rather than promote Photo Story 3. With Windows Vista Home Premium and and Vista Ultimate (but not with Vista Basic or Vista Business) you now get a “better” Windows Movie Maker, and Windows DVD Maker.
GREAT, you say… but wait…. these new programs are not really an improvement on Photo Story 3.
Without getting into a detailed comparison, let’s take a look at a few facts about all these programs.
- Movie Maker has been around a long time, and has always given you the ability to create photo slide shows. However, the program was really intended for VIDEO more than for still photographic images. It does give you transitions, soundtracks, and even a non-cusomizable pan effect, but it’s a lot more cumbersome to create photo shows than Photo Story is.
- Windows DVD Maker does let you create a photo show and put it on DVD, but offers a lot less than Photo Story does in how you can customiz your show.
What this is all leading me to say is…. Photo Story 3 is still my FREE slide-show program of choice, even if I have Windows Vista. And if you need to make DVD’s of your slide shows, the $19.95 you pay for the Sonic add-on program is definately worth it. Who knows, perhaps Windows 7 will have an awesome photo slide show maker that will make me finally abandon Photo Story 3, but if history is any lesson, I bet it won’t.
TROULESHOOTING NOTE: If you install Photo Story 3 in Vista, and get a message saying that Vista can’t run the program, you need to run Photo Story 3 in compatibility mode. To do this, RIGHT click the Photo Story 3 icon and choose PROPERITES. In the properties window, choose the Compatibility tab, and then check the “Run this in compatibiltiy mode for” box. In the dropdown list, choose “Windows XP Service Pack 2″. (See the screen show below). Then click OK. It should now run just fine in Vista.
UPDATE 01.20.2010 – Does Photo Story 3 Work with Windows 7?
I’ve had lots of students ask if Photo Story 3 works with Windows 7, and now that I’ve had some time to play around with it… I have some relatively bad news. Photo Story 3 does NOT work with Windows 7, without putting in some effort that you might not WANT to put in. Here are the facts that I’ve discovered in messing around with Windows 7 Home Premium (64bit) and Windows 7 Professional (32bit):
- In many cases, Photo Story 3 will work with a fresh install of Windows 7, or a direct update to Windows 7 from Vista, but ONLY until you “activate” the copy of Windows 7. Once you’ve activated, and then also recieved some of the Microsoft Windows updates, when you start Photo Story 3, you get the following error message…
- If you try to run the program in Compatibility Mode (as we described above for Vista), it will still not work, and gives you the same message.
- Some have reported that if you use the version of Photo Story 3.1 found in Microsoft Digital Imaging Starter Edition 2006 (you can download it from CNet), it WILL work with Windows 7. The problem is… this is a limited version that times out after 60 days. So unless you want to try setting your computer clock back, this is only a short-term solution.
- If your hardware supports it, you can run a copy of Windows XP using Virtual PC inside of Windows 7. Photo Story 3 will run inside of Virtual PC. With Windows 7, Microsoft has changed their “Virtual PC” terminology to “Windows XP Mode”, but it’s basically the same thing. What you’re dong is running a “virtual” copy of Windows on top of Windows 7, and then running Photo Story 3 inside that virtual copy of Windows. It’s not as complicated as it sounds (visit the Microsoft Virtual PC page for more info), but your computer must have the right type of CPU that runs what’s called “hardware assisted virtualization”. Even if your have a fairly new computer, it might not have this ability.BTW, my 1 year-old Intel dual-core HP notebook computer does NOT have hardware assisted virtualization, but my home-made 3 year-old Intel quad core desktop machine DOES! Go figure….
- By the way, I’ve just added a blog called Photo Story in Windows 7? Only in Virtual XP Mode that tells you all about using this method.
- You can setup a dual-boot computer, running Windows 7 and Windows XP or Vista. If you are interested, here’s a link to a forum message that includes additional links on how to do it.
- Keep an old computer around with Windows XP or Windows Vista on it. As stupid as this sounds, it’s not a totally bad idea. Rather than upgrade to Windows 7, I’ve run into lots of folks that are just purchasing a new computer with Windows 7 on it. Considering that an upgrade to Windows 7 costs about $120, and you can purchase a new laptop with Windows 7 for as little as $350 (from a place like Best Buy), it might make sense. Then, you can keep your old XP or Vista machine around and just run Photo Story on it. I’ll probably end up doing this.
So you can see, there’s no totally easy solution to this. It really bums me out because I recommend Photo Story 3 to a LOT of my students that are looking for an easy to use, yet fairly powerful, photo slide show program. As my students upgrade to Windows 7, they will be forced to use alternatives such as Movie Maker and Microsoft DVD Maker… neither of which has the flexibility and power of Photo Story 3.
For you Windows 7 users, I’ll keep looking around at free photo slide show programs, and keep you posted if I find anything worthwhile.
UPDATE 05.03.2010 – I’ve settled on using Windows XP Mode in Windows 7!
The other day I taught another Photo Story 3 class, and now that I’m using Windows 7 on my “teaching” notebook, I had a decision to make. My notebook came with Windows 7 Home Premium, which as we’ve mentioned does NOT run Windows XP mode. I finally decided it was time to upgrade to Windows 7 Professional, just so I can run Windows XP mode and therefore, run Photo Story 3. The upgrade was easy (downloaded it via Anytime Upgrade from Microsoft), installing Windows XP mode was simple, and Photo Story 3 installed flawlessly.
Now that I’ve had some experience running Photo Story 3 in Windows 7 Windows XP mode, I’ve found no problems to report, other than some issues with recording narration. However, in messing around a bit, I was able to get Windows XP mode to recognize the ‘cheap’ audio hardware included on my notebook, and I’m now running Photo Story 3 in Windows 7 without issues.
I’d love to hear others experience with this. Just leave a comment….
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi John,
Thanks for the tip on running Photo Story 3 in Vista! The only thing I have found though is that it won’t allow me to record narration. It brings up messages about changing audio settings but it can’t do it. I can record to Sound Recorder without a problem. Any tips will be gratefully received!
Thanks again,
Geoff
Geoff: Sorry it took forever to answer you. You’ve defiantly identified an issue with Photo Story 3 and Vista. Since I don’t often use the Narration feature, I hadn’t yet discovered the audio problem, so thanks for bringing it to my attention. Here’s what I did to troubleshoot:
First, I simply started a new slide show and attempted to use the “configure microphone button” to adjust the audio. The audio button is completely dead in Vista. Next, I clicked the record button, and like you, got the message that Photo Story needed to adjust the microphone settings, but when I clicked OK it displayed a warning message that it could not adjust those settings.
Obviously, whatever method PS-3 uses to access the Windows audio settings does not work in Vista. In Goggling the problem I found nothing related to audio. Bummer… no easy solution from someone else. So the troubleshooting continued…
Next I tried setting the compatibility mode for PS-3 to Windows XP SP2. No luck there either.
Finally, I plugged in a USB microphone and manually configured it using the Control Panel Sound utility (Start / Control Panel / Sound / Recording Tab / click the device and choose Properties and/or Configure). Back in PS-3, the “configure microphone button” still did not work, and I still got the warning message when I clicked the Record button, but this time I just clicked the “NO button” to bypass configuring the microphone, and when the recording timer started, I was able to narrate.
Here’s an example of what I could do.
I honestly can’t give you any ultimate solution to this issue. I was able to get my USB microphone to work, but only after manually configuring it.
Wish I could tell you more!!!! But thanks again for bringing it to my attention.