Photo Gallery will do bulk conversion with this approach:
- Select photos to be converted (usually the entire newly made folder).
- Click the Edit tab
- Click Resize (yes,Resize)
- In Resize dialog select Custom and set the Maximum dimensions well above what your camera delivers (8000 should work)
- Complete the resize operation - You can specify where the JPGs are to go.
This will make JPG copies of your photos and leave them in full size (resize does not increase size, just leaves them at their max dimension).
I use this procedure routinely as it is much faster then other ways of converting to JPGs.