Windows Property System tags not visible

[Edsuko]

Hi, new to the forum and to exifTool, I'm excited by the possibilities exiftool presents, but I've been having some issues, been reading the faq and jumping through the available documentation

My scenario is:
I have a large collection of images that have multiple tags using the windows property system/tags 
I use these three fields

(System.keyword) (System.Author) and (System.Comment)
System.Keyword have multiple tags separated by ";"
while each image has only one input in Author and Comment

Lately I've been trying to standardize my galleries to manage them with adobe bridge,
so I'd like to extract the info of those fields into a CSV, edit it and copy them into

IPTC:Keywords  XMP:Creator
and some other field for what I have in Comment (which is a category, comprised of 4, basically to pick favorites)

But I can't for the life of me visualize/extract the existing information on those system. fields using Exiftool

I tried extracting using:
exiftool -filename -XPKeywords -LastKeywordXMP -LastKeywordIPTC -subjet -HierarchicalSubject  -keywords -T -csv -ext JPG D:\Dir1 >D:\Dir1\out.csv

Since I read that windows seem to store its tags/keywords on one of those fields
But when opening Out.CSV, everything is empty,
I also tried using jExifToolGUI just in case and same thing (couldn't display the existing information in system.keyword)
I added a TestKeyword using Adobe bridge, and when extracting that was the only keyword visible in the spreadsheet
I hope there's a way to realize what I'm trying to do
and sorry if I'm asking for something too simple that I just haven't been able to find
but when

[StarGeek]

See this post for what embedded metadata Windows will read/write and the properties they corrispond to. For example, for the "Author" property, Windows will read these tags
EXIF:Artist
EXIF:XPAuthor
IPTC:By-line
XMP-dc:Creator

If you set "Author" from the Properties window->Details tab, it will write the EXIF and XMP tags and will write the IPTC tag only if there are other IPTC tags.

My suggestion is to move away from the Windows properties. Many of those tags are only used by Windows, specifically the XP* ones, and they ignore most of the standards for the other ones.

Use the command in FAQ #3 on a file that already has the data you want to move.  This will list all the data in the file including duplicated tag names and the groups they belong to.  Then you will have the names you want to use to extract to the csv file.

[Edsuko]

Thanks for the reply,
And yeah I'm trying to move away from windows properties, but would like to be able to to migrate the existent information from previous galleries

System.keywords is the main thing I'd like to migrate
I did read the Windows metadata page
which is how I came up and tried using:
 
exiftool -filename -XPKeywords -LastKeywordXMP -LastKeywordIPTC -subjet -HierarchicalSubject  -keywords -T -csv -ext JPG D:\Dir1 >D:\Dir1\out.csv

which sadly yielded no results
After failing at that I did also try

exiftool -a -G1 -s D:\Downloads\EXIFTOOL(TEST)\a.jpg

as shown in Faq #3
to see if I could Identify the name of the field containing the existent tags, but they're nowhere to be found (not even the info on AUthor nor Comment)
Also being the reason why I tried jExifToolGUI , in case I could find an option I was missing to locate such data
so do you think there's now way to save/backup/recuperate the tags on those galleries?

[StarGeek]

And the data shows up in the Right Click->Properties->Details tab?  Very, very strange.

It might be a stretch, but check for some Alternate Data Streams (ADS) with
dir /R C:\path\to\files\

Or try copying the file to something that isn't formatted NTFS.  For example, reformat a flash drive as FAT32 instead of NTFS.  Then, if you try and copy the file onto the flash drive, there should be a pop up that says something like "Are you sure you want to copy this file without its properties".

[Edsuko]

I ran the command as follows

dir /R D:\Downloads\EXIFTOOL(TEST)\a.jpg

and this was the result

Code Select Expand

Volume in drive D is MYNAME
Volume Serial Number is E681-3BFB

Directory of D:\Downloads\EXIFTOOL(TEST)

04/24/2023  02:51 PM        16,442,042 a.jpg
                                  416 a.jpg:♣SummaryInformation:$DATA
                                    0 a.jpg:{4c8cc155-6c1e-11d1-8e41-00c04fb9386d}:$DATA
              1 File(s)    16,442,042 bytes
              0 Dir(s)  3,152,316,162,048 bytes free

then I formatted a USB as exFat (Since I didn't get a Fat32 option)
and tried copying the picture there,
it didn't ask for anything but once pasted the picture didn't have any tags inside of it

Then I looked for and tried with my old usb (this one allowed me to go FAT32)
same thing, no prompt but picture was pasted without tags

am I screwed?

[StarGeek]

It looks like whatever you are using to save the data is writing to the ADS.  Is the club symbol really there or was that changed when pasting to the forum.  That might make it more difficult.

try this on the command line
type a.jpg:♣SummaryInformation

Depending upon the format, it could be possible to read the data and copy it elsewhere.  This post gives an example of reading the Zone.Identifier ADS, which is added by most browsers showing where a file was downloaded from.

[Edsuko]

I'm sorry but I'm lousy in the code realm,
I tried running
type a.jpg:♣SummaryInformation
and then
type D:\Downloads\EXIFTOOL(TEST)\a.jpg:♣SummaryInformation

and got "The Filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect"

Also tried running the code from the appointed post in CMD and got some files ({.'Directory','Filename' q{,'Zoneidentifier' all without any extension)
but when opening with a note editor they were all empty
I'm clearly doing something wrong
Sorry

[StarGeek]

You might try Nirsoft AlternateStreamView.

[Edsuko]

I Just tried that program:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1B4lq3pjpYNOx7pvhgrAGnc_4DmotErLu/view?usp=share_link
But know not what to conclude with that
I'm making myself up to the idea (grieving the idea) to abandon the gallery and start over
since it seems the existent tags can't be read by apparently anything other than Windows