Newbie help

[thmil]

Hi,
Initially, I did have it running and I was able to drop a jpeg into the icon and see the metadata, but I want to edit the created date for a scanned photo.

I searched for more information and was overwhelmed.

Then are so many commands, I didnt know how to do it. so now I messed it up. I don't know if I loaded it correctly or made more than one installation...

I copied the exe to the root drive, then moved it to another folder, then deleted it. Then copied it to another folder, etc. Soon I forgot where I put it and how many copies I had.

Then I followed the instructions to go into the system environment and add a path to the folder where I put the exe. Now when I drag a jpeg into the icon, the command prompt flashes and disappears.

I am able to double click the exe and get the instructions, but now I do not know how to see or edit the metatdata of the original file I wanted to work on.

Please help if you can.
Tim

[Phil Harvey]

Hi Tim,

One way is to rename "exiftool(-k).exe" to something like "exiftool(-k -alldates='2023:11:19 10:00:00').exe" then drag and drop the files onto it.

See the Running in Windows section of the ExifTool home page for more information.

- Phil

[thmil]

Hi Phil,
Thank you.
I added the suffix as you suggested, but it does not work for me. I got an error saying the ":" character is not allowed - then it removes the ":", as exiftool(-k -alldates='20231119 100000')

I'm running windows 10.
The file is called "scan 2.jpg"

Then...
Error: Error creating file: C:/Program Files/Exiftool/scan 2.jpg_exiftool_tmp - C:/Program Files/Exiftool/scan 2.jpg
    0 image files updated
    1 files weren't updated due to errors
-- press ENTER --

OK. So I change exe back to exiftool(-k).exe and am able to see the metadata. So, yay! but when I hit enter it closes. and if I try to enter anything, it closes.

But again, I am confused about how to change file dates.
Thanks again.
Tim
 

[Phil Harvey]

Hi Tim,

Ooops, sorry. I forgot that the colon isn't allowed in Windows file names.  But it should work with the colons removed if ExifTool has write permission for the file/folder.  I don't think that the "Program Files" folder is a good place for testing, and ExifTool may not have permission to write there.

- Phil

[StarGeek]

I don't think that the "Program Files" folder is a good place for testing, and ExifTool may not have permission to write there.

This is correct.  Windows is very strict about any write or copy operations on the "Program Files" and "Program Files (x86)" directories.

but when I hit enter it closes. and if I try to enter anything, it closes.

The window that pops up when you drop a file on the icon is informative only.  It is not an interactive window.  For that you need to open a command line.  On Windows, CMD is preferable, as PowerShell has a lot of attributes that break standard exiftool commands.

You might take a look at jExifToolGUI, which is a Java GUI for running exiftool.\

I would also suggest that you look into using a Digital Asset Management (DAM) program.  Adobe Bridge is free and lets you edit file metadata on a per directory basis.  DigiKam is a full feature DAM that is free and open source. DarkTable is another free and open source DAM that is also a photo editing program like LightRoom.