Remove Properties function fails on removing location info on photos from Windows Phone

Question

On photos taken with smartphones running Windows Phone 7.5, the "remove properties and personal information" feature fails on removing GPS coordinates from the pictures.

After importing the picture to my computer, I right-click the picture in Windows Explorer and go in Properties>Details tab.

I click "remove personal information"

I get an error saying it was unable to remove the property. It fails on all three GPS properties: Latitude, Longitude and Altitude.

Any idea why?

Answer 1

What I've been doing is opening the files in Paint and resaving them as PNGs, which can't store location info.

Answer 2

It's not fixed, they rewrote something which doesn't exhibit the issue. Fixing would involve finding out what the problem is and patching it for all OSs that share that library.

  Still here end of 2014, an issues that started 5 years ago. Explorer's handling of EXIF info has 2 bugs, both related to header size (Arihmetic overload and Unknown error) both happen on JPEGs that have been tagged with a lot of info - that's why it happens on WP pics - those have complete EXIF info.

  After years of frustration, I wrote my own tagger and attacked the images that were shot to pieces and, to my surprise, my program just worked on all samples, I was sure there was some error writing them, as I didn't think such a simple error would be here for 5 years - immutable properties for JPEG files.

  You can't rotate them, or edit properties, but there are 2 workarounds, in case anyone is listening:

  a) You can right-click edit the image with Paint and then hit Ctrl+s. That makes paint write a valid JPEG according to Explorer. I am fairly sure, however, that paint re-saves the image data, thus re-encoding it. To be fair, Paint does a swell job, I never remarked the drop in quality.

  b) You can tell Windows to kill ALL EXIF data not by removing tags, but by making a new file with no data in it (there's a radio group when you select properties). That usually works, as Windows glues the image data to a bare EXIF. You will lose all other data.

  Sort of a workaround, however, is to get a 3rd party editor. The images are likely fine, it's Explorer that has issues with JPEG (seriously, people, an OS having issues with the most widely used image format is kinda weird to even type). Use an open tool, so it's clean and free. EXIFTOOL is a command line tool you can use to strip an entire folder (more with FOR /R) or get a GUI version (FastPhotoTagger, e.g.). Go to SourceForge and get one, no shady sites.

  The issue is related to PhotoMetadataHandler.dll, that raises an assert() (oh, Microsoft, come on) likely related to EXIF being over 64K in size (oh dear, 16 bit left in?). The libraries are still shipped, AFAICT, with Visual C++ and redist, further compounding the problem.

Answer 3

Seriously, this is beyond any decency on the part of Microsoft. Unfortunately, as Microsoft focuses on often useless software their code becomes more and more buggy. What's worse, they don't even address it. It's 2017 and the issue still persists (at least on Windows 7). Now I will have to try and install a bunch of 3rd party software exposing my system to all kinds of security risks.

Answer 4

Note to fellow moderators: This thread is about a function failing in Windows 7. Please do not move this thread to the Windows Phone forum.

Answer 5

No ideas anyone?