hi there, After I hyperlinked a .jpg file in an Excel cell, I can click on the cell and have the .jpg displayed. My problem is that Excel calls Microsoft Photo Editor as the image handler, which has a limitation of handling only small files. How do I tell Excel to use other programs (e.g: Windows Picture and Fax Viewer) to handle image hyperlinks? I use XP Home Edition and Excel 2002 SP-2. Thanks in advance for your help. David

I have found two posiible solutions to your problem below: Here's one way you might be able to get Picture and Fax Viewer to open your .tiff files if another application--like Quicktime--has hijacked them: * Put a .tiff file on your desktop * Right-click it * Choose the "Open With" submenu * Click "Choose Program..." * Wait - if you have a slow computer (over two or three years), the window may not come up quicky. If it takes more than five minutes, something's probably up. And that's five real minutes. * In the "Open With" window that pops up, click on "Windows Picture and Fax Viewer". It should be in the "Recommended Programs" list at the top of the window. * Click the "Always use the selected program to open this kind of file" checkbox that's near the bottom of the window, just above the "Browse..." button. * Click "OK". That should do it. --------------- This one may help but means editing the Registry! Once again, Microsoft isn't following their own rules. The Windows Picture and Fax Viewer is set as the default image viewer for all sorts of file types in Windows XP. Unfortunately, choosing a new program as the default in the File Types window won't change this, and there's no option in the Windows interface that can disable this component. It's a really stupid design, and it takes a Registry change to fix it: Solution #1: * Run the Registry Editor (REGEDIT.EXE). * Navigate to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\ SystemFileAssociations\ image\ ShellEx\ ContextMenuHandlers. * Delete the ShellImagePreview key. * Close the Registry Editor when you're done; the change will take effect immediately. Solution #2: * Run the Registry Editor (REGEDIT.EXE). * Navigate to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\ CLSID\ {e84fda7c-1d6a-45f6-b725-cb260c236066}\ shellex. * Delete the MayChangeDefaultMenu key. * Close the Registry Editor when you're done; the change will take effect immediately. M

hi M, Thanks for your detailed explanation. However I think you misunderstood my question. Under the OS, I don't have any problem changing my default handler, just like your first solution suggested. So for example, I can double click a .jpg file and get Windows Picture and Fax Viewer as my default handler. My problem is on a hyperlink (pointing to a image file) WITHIN Excel. Upon clicking that hyperlink, Excel calls Microsoft Photo Editor, regardless of whatever my default image handler is at the OS level. Any idea? Thanks. David