MS Paint "Save as" location is NOT the file source location


  1. Posts : 2
    Windows 10
       #1

    MS Paint "Save as" location is NOT the file source location


    Hi,

    In Windows 8.1 (and as far as I can remember in all previous Windows versions) I used to be able to do the following:
    • In Windows Explorer: Open a .jpg file from anywhere in my file system, by right mouse clicking and choosing "edit"
    • After editing: "Save as" (press F12) and save the edited file IN ITS ORIGINAL LOCATION but under a different name.

    Now, in Windows 10, the situation is different:
    • In Windows Explorer I open a .jpg file from anywhere in my file system by right mouse clicking and choosing "edit"
    • After editing: "Save as" (F12) opens a dialogue box that suggests I save the file, NOT in its original location, but in a location that is either the default "pictures" directory or the directory that was previously used as a "save as" location in Paint (these locations are stored in the registry key "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Applets\Paint\Recent File List")


    Now I'd like very much to get the old, Windows 8 type situation back because this does not work for me! It's very inconvenient to have to scroll and click my way through the "save as" dialogue box until I finally find the directory where the edited file was stored in the first place! Why o why does Windows not remember this location?
    I've searched through the internet but it seems nobody else has this problem. I've searched the registry for the word "paint" but was not able to find a setting that would suggest to have some influence on the default saving location of Paint.

    Can someone please, please help me? It's driving me nuts! And it's sooo frustrating knowing that it used to work like a charm in WIN8.1 and before.

    To clarify the difficulty I experience I perhaps should add that the jpg files I most frequently edit are located on shares on my NAS in paths such as:
    M:\1_KLAS\Bach\Kerk\Jos van Veldhoven\Matthäus Passion, BWV 244 (24-88 2010)\scans\001.jpg
    As you can see, that's buried quite deeply into the file system! And so it costs all the more time and effort to find my way back from the previously edited jpg, say:
    M:\1_KLAS\Bruckner\Orkest\Chailly\Symfonie Nr.6 & Wolf - 4 Goethe Lieder (Goerne, KCO)\scans\001.jpg

    P.S. I read somewhere that the "save as" dialogue boxes for Paint and Notepad should be basically the same. But... when I use Notepad to edit some txt file and afterwards use the "save as" option, it does direct me to the original location of the edited file, just as it used to do in Windows 8.1! That tells me that it should still be possible to get the old "save as" behaviour back for Paint. (Or am I being too optimistic here?)
    P.P.S. F12 does not work anymore in Notepad. You have to go through the menu "File" -> "Save as..." That's also a pain in the ass

    Which registry key will do the trick for me?
      My Computer


  2. Posts : 3,367
    W10 Pro x64/W7 Ultimate x64 dual boot main - W11 Triple Boot Pending
       #2

    Hello hvaleton Welcome to the Ten Forums!

    I just right clicked on an image file here and chose the Edit option and the "save as" to save the jpeg file with the word "duplicate" added into the file name to save it in the original location. You may want to try starting with the Paint app first you find in the Start>AllApps>Windows Accessories list and then simply choose the open option in the file menu to browse to and select the intended file. You can also see that pinned to the Start menu as well as to the main taskbar with a fast right click.

    If your copy of 10 was an upgrade install that might explain the problem you are seeing since the upgrade install tends to not see everything go on fully at times. The word "Buggy" tends to fit the bill for that type of install and not specific to 10 only but every version coming up from Legacy to 9x onto ME, 2000, XP, Vista, 7, 8, 8.1, and now 10.

    The one thing favored with having the Windows Photo Viewer restored replaced by Photos in 10 is that once you have any image or photo in view you can simply to upto the menu and select the "Make a copy" option and browse to the location you want the new copy to be created and saved to on the spot.

    You just can't alter things like you can with MS Paint or the favorite for many 3rd party free image editing program known as PaintNet. Besides painting over and erasing things if not drawing lines under and around objects in an image you can add new layers in order to insert cutouts with that one.
      My Computers


  3. Posts : 2
    Windows 10
    Thread Starter
       #3

    Hello Night Hawk,

    Thanks for your quick reply and for your welcome!

    Are you using a freshly installed Win10 version and not an update from Win81? That part of your post is not completely clear to me. And does the "save as" dialogue box direct you to the original file location or did you first have to navigate to the original directory to be able to save your duplicate jpeg file?

    You may want to try starting with the Paint app first you find in the Start>AllApps>Windows Accessories list and then simply choose the open option in the file menu to browse to and select the intended file. You can also see that pinned to the Start menu as well as to the main taskbar with a fast right click.
    I've tried that and it does seem to work. Pressing the F12 button after editing does give me the opportunity to save the edited jpg into the same directory it was opened from.
    But unfortunately this does not help me. What I would gain in terms of time and effort in the "save as " stage, I would lose during the navigating process while opening the file.
    You should know that my starting point always is Windows Explorer. Typically I work from MediaMonkey which allows me to open the current directory (where the music files I'm busy tagging reside) in Explorer without having to do any browsing.

    By the way: my WIN10 install was indeed an upgrade of a Win81.
    But the Win81 was freshly installed on an empty partition only minutes before I upgraded to Win10!
    If this procedure always leads to a buggy OS, then I have a serious problem because I don't have the license code (or whatever it's called) for Win10. Only for Win8.
    I did try the save as action in MSPaint on two other Win10 machines but they too gave the same results.

    Unfortunately your third and fourth paragraphs are not entirely clear to me. Perhaps they were written in great haste? Or did the spelling checker get the better of you?

    Anyway, I use Photo Viewer as my standard viewer but that piece of software does not allow me to edit, does it? Photos in Win10 allows for basic editing but not the type of editing I need: resizing.
    I need to resize cover art from say 1440x1440 pixels to 700x700 and then store it as folder.jpg in a directory that's one level above the "scans" directory. Browsing to a directory one level up, by the way, is something I can practically do while sleeping, using only shortcut keys. I use my mouse as little as humanly possible.

    I followed your suggesting and installed Paint.net on one of my machines. "Save as" (accessed by shortcut key combination CTRL+Shift+S, not F12, unfortunately) does allow me to save the file I just opened in its orignal directory. And there's a shortcut (CTRL+R) for resizing. So perhaps I'll be using Paint.net from now on. That's if no-one comes up with a solution for this bug, as I call it, in MSPaint.

    Oh, if I start using Paint.net, I will probably want to change the funtion of the "edit" option in the file context menu (right mouse click on a jpg in Windows Explorer). I suppose there's a Registry key for that?


    Thanks and Regards,

    Hans
      My Computer


  4. Posts : 3,367
    W10 Pro x64/W7 Ultimate x64 dual boot main - W11 Triple Boot Pending
       #4

    PaintNet is a bit different size not only do you save as but also can flatten layers as part of the process and projects as well. I often end using both since each has a completely different set of tools to work with.

    Now for question about your copy of 10 was referring to the present Windows 10 installation you are running. The question is in regards to the type of installation you saw as far as the upgrade from 8.1 to 10 went. Was that an upgrade type install or did you see 10 go on fresh with a full clean install?

    When going to hit the F12 key here the prompt that opened up was to the file location suggesting that Windows simply isn't remembering where the source folders are. That's mainly an explorer issue but much more apparently a mishap while 10 was going on suggesting you had an upgrade over 8.1 type installation rather then seeing 10 go on fresh. A run of a couple of system tools might help without any guaranty however before the last resort options since so far you are only seeing this with the MS Paint app and nothing more severe to force either a second Upgrade to Repair type of install in order to see a quick fix of 10 or to simply call it a day and see a brand new fresh copy of 10 go on being a full Clean Install last resort option and starting all over from the basics only which means investing the time to get everything back on again as if you had suddenly dropped a brand new bare hard drive in almost.

    The two tools one being the Disk Check tool is far less likely to even be needed while you could still schedule that to run on your next system startup in order to have that tool look for and repair any errors on the drive itself. The other tool being the System File Checker looks for any system files missing or corrupted that may or may not actually help with Paint since that is a Windows accessory not any important system file as far as Windows depends on in order to run. Simply right clicking on the Start button and choosing the Command prompt(admin) option to open that up and keeping it open first to enter the "chkdsk /r/f" command without the quotations will see the message appear that the Disk Check tool is schedule for the next startup.

    The second command to enter before closing that up will be the "sfc /scannow" command for the System File Checker tool which will run for several minutes while you can take care of other things like checking the mail while that runs. Once that has finished you can look over the results which will provide a count on how many files were replaced and in case a file can't be from the cab files already on the drive tucked away the tool will usually prompt for the Windows media.

    Most likely that won't be needed unless the problem you are seeing in Paint has started to reveal a more serious problem that would come up a later time where something more serious occurs? Nothing can ever be ruled out entirely with any upgrade type install where some problems only show themselves over time while others are seen right away. Hopefully the run of each tool will help with this since I doubt simply trying out a system restore point would be too soon since this is likely from the upgrade itself.
      My Computers


  5. Posts : 8
    Windows 10
       #5

    Hi ... The previous reply was 7 months ago, but I've just found this thread, having the same problem as the OP, and I see that no solution has been found to the problem as originally described. So I'm going to describe my partial workaround.

    Let's say I've used Windows file Explorer (perhaps via 'This PC') to go to a folder; I've decided to edit an image using Paint; and I'm about to do a Save As in that same folder the image was in.

    In the explorer address bar, I click on an empty part of it, and the pathway turns blue and becomes a pathway string.
    Stick that into your paste buffer... I use CTRL+C.
    In the Paint program, select the Save As > filetype and the dialog box appears, but with a historical folder location cluttering things up.
    In the address bar, I click on an empty part of it, and the pathway turns blue and becomes a pathway string.
    I can replace the rogue pathway with the desired one by a paste overwrite, ie just hit CTRL+V.
    Then click the right arrow that's just to the right of the address bar ... and that's it. You're now where you wanted to be.

    Now, I know this workaround is a bit tedious. But it's a handy alternative to burrowing around folder trees, if that isn't a mixed metaphor.
      My Computer


 

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