General

The Send to command in Windows Explorer is one of the much underused features in Windows. Try it, you'll like it.

Send to email recipient

A particularly useful feature is the ability to send one or more files to an email recipient right from Windows Explorer.

Moreover, when the files are pictures of certain file types like JPEG (JPG), a dialog pops up that allows you to reduce the size of the pictures dramatically, to make them more palatable for an email.

What if it doesn't work?

Some software installations or updates seem to destroy this capability. The symptom is that after choosing Send to, the photos are immediately put into an open email without offering you the choice to reduce their size.

To reinstate the function, do this. Never type any quotes (""). They are only used here to delimit strings.

1. Open a command line window and enter the command "regsvr32 shimgvw.dll".
2. Test whether this was already enough to repair the defect. If so, stop here. If not, proceed to the next point.
3. Open the registry editor and click on Start, Run, type "regedit", press the Enter key.
4. Navigate to "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.jpg"
5. Check on the right side whether this key has a value named "Content Type" containing "image/jpeg" and a value named "PerceivedType" containing "image". If so, stop here. Your problem lies elsewhere and this advice cannot solve your problem.
6. Create or correct the missing values as follows.
7. While having ".jpg" selected in the left pane of registry editor, use the Edit menu and choose New/String value. Type "Content Type" (with one space) as the new value name and press the Enter key.
8. Double-click the new value named "Content Type". Type the actual value, "image/jpeg". Press the Enter key.
9. While having ".jpg" selected in the left pane of registry editor, use the Edit menu and choose New/String value. Type "PerceivedType" (without space) as the new value name and press the Enter key.
10. Double-click the new value named "PerceivedType". Type the actual value, "image". Press the Enter key.
11. You can now close registry editor and retest by trying to send a JPEG (JPG) image to an email recipient. If it still doesn't offer you to reduce the size, bad luck. The cause is somewhere else.