Published on February 9, 2007

I have downloaded and used the CD Slide Show Generator PowerToy for years. Recently, whenever I try to write pictures to a CD, I am no longer asked to add the Picture Viewer to the CD. I have already uninstalled and reinstalled the CD Slide Show Generator PowerToy several times, but in vain.

You're not prompted to add a picture viewer when burning image files to a CD in Windows XP

Symptom

Resolution

To reinstate the missing dialog, follow these steps:

Click Start, Run and type:

regsvr32 shimgvw.dll

Press Enter. Similarly, run the following command:

regsvr32 slideshow.dll

Restart Windows and check if the missing dialog box is reinstated when writing pictures to a CD. If the problem persists, here are some checkpoints to follow:

If you're writing mixed content, make sure that the 1st file (sort by name) in the list is an image file.
Repair the file associations for the image file types which you're writing to CD.

Editor's note: If you're writing mixed content to a CD, make sure that the picture files constitute more than 50% of the total number of files you're trying to write. This worked successfully in my systems. Though I can't provide a guarantee that this rule will apply in every case, but it's certainly worth a try.

More information

Using the CD Slide Show Generator PowerToy you can view images burned to a CD as a slide show. The CD Slide Show Generator PowerToy adds a CD Writing Extension (slideshow.dll), which prompts the user to add a picture viewer when writing image files to a CD. Here is how the dialog looks like:

If you choose the option Yes, add a picture viewer, it adds the files autorun.inf and autorun.exe to the CD automatically.