XPTitle, XPComment, XPAuthor, etc

[JL]

First of all, what is it? And where does it come from?

In the process of deleting AFCP keywords and copyrights, which mostly worked, I came across some cases where the data had been written to XP(whatever) instead and found it immovable.

As of today I've come across 300 gravestone pictures with identical captions. I have no idea how this happened. It was written correctly using Photo Mechanic. I had Windows Live Photo Gallery on my computer for about a week and the 2011 update for 3 days. (Do I hear groans?) and that's the only other place the photos have been viewed (no editing done there) other than Photo Mechanic. I now have errant data written to the EXIF Image Description and XPTitle fields in these 300 photos and it won't budge.

The question would be, How did it get there? (even wild guesses welcome) and How do I get rid of it?

[Phil Harvey]

The "XP" tags are written by Microsoft products.  These products have no qualms about messing around with your precious images (and a long history of corrupting metadata), so I would avoid them like the plague.

- Phil

[JL]

Thanks, Phil. I did figure that out yesterday after looking online. I've been setting up Windows folders so I can see the File Properties (what a pain that is) and deleting the XP data one photo at a time. This is really fun to do on 12,000 photos. Most of it went away but I've got about 50 photos that won't let me change them. I get error codes that point to registry errors according to online sources.

0x80070057
0x88982F72

I haven't messed around with my registry because I don't place much credence in what I've seen so far as to an explanation.

The question, of course, is how the XP data got there in the first place. Once again, based on the nature of it, old 'IPTC' I overwrote with Photo Mechanic still hanging on in there as XPSubject and XPComments, I was guessing the now-defunct MediaDex. You know, our old AFCP friend.

I've been experimenting around and find that Windows File Properties writes to XMP. i.e. if I make a change to a photo in WFP the change will show under XMP using ExifToolGUI, but the change will strip the IPTC out of Photo Mechanic!

This is happening on a Windows 7 system; I can't speak for anything else.

[BogdanH]

Hi,

...I've been setting up Windows folders so I can see the File Properties (what a pain that is) and deleting the XP data one photo at a time. This is really fun to do on 12,000 photos...

I must ask anyway.. do I understand correct: you deleted XPtags manually, one photo at a time? Why didn't you do that in batch? -or am I missing something?

...I've been experimenting around and find that Windows File Properties writes to XMP. i.e. if I make a change to a photo in WFP the change will show under XMP...

Yes, as it seems, in Win7, some XMP tags can be seen/changed. But I don't trust Win to write/change them. My impression is, that MS don't know a thing about image metadata (or they simply don't care about metadata security/standardisation). I mean, MS doesn't even make use of Exif:Orientation tag in Windows Photo Viewer (you must physicaly rotate image data to see portrait images vertically)... so, how can I trust MS in this regard?

As I said many times (not only here): Exiftool is the only one I fully trust -period.

Bogdan

[JL]

I was not able to delete any XP tags using ExifToolGUI so yes, I've deleted them one at a time. Some of this doesn't work very well, as you might imagine. It seemed to work OK deleting XPSubject and XPComments. The XPSubject would rewrite from the proper IPTC in Photo Mechanic (since PM writes to IPTC and XMP) once the field was cleared out. XPTitle and XPSubject seem to be the same thing, i.e. IPTC Caption/Description.

Deleting 'tags' works differently. WFP seems to consider it like a re-write, so if I delete a keyword from Windows File Properties, it will strip all IPTC. Apparently it only deals in XMP, so clicking the OK button clears anything that's IPTC in the photo. It just takes it right out. All fields.