title: Animated GIF support in Windows Photo Viewer?
body: <p>I've been doing a bit of research to find out why Windows 7 won't support animated GIF images in the photo viewer natively. </p>
  
  <p>People have <a href="http://www.sevenforums.com/music-pictures-video/39095-animated-gifs-windows-photo-viewer.html" rel="noreferrer">suggested various third-party software</a> (AKA not the built-in windows photo viewer) to solve this shortcoming. But since the photo viewer uses WIC (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Imaging_Component" rel="noreferrer">Windows Imaging Component</a>) to decode images, this system can be used to add support for just about any format. I'm guessing this means I could make a replacement GIF codec to replace the built-in one, but before I do I need to know something.</p>
  
  <p>So, what I'm asking is, is the reason the photo viewer doesn't support animated gifs is because of the fact that WIC only supports still images? Or is it that WPV doesn't have supported coded in for animated formats but WIC codecs can support them? If it's either of these reasons, I guess I have no reason to start this project (creating a WIC codec for animated GIFs).</p>
  
  <p>...or did Microsoft seriously not get around to adding the support themselves?</p>
  
  <p>PS: A program called FastPictureViewer supports animated gifs in the photo viewer, but you can only "view individual frames within animated GIFs". A clue as to the limitations of this platform (WIC) or the limitations of WPV?</p>