I’m using Windows 7, trying to transfer photos from my digital camera to my laptop for the second time, but the Import Pictures and Videos wizard won’t let me. After I connect my camera and choose ‘Import pictures and videos’ from the AutoPlay dialog box, I get a message from the Import Pictures and Videos wizard that ‘No new pictures or videos were found on this device’.
Although it would have been simple to just treat the camera as a mass storage device and browse the files in Explorer, I wanted to use the wizard to create a folder for each date. Why can’t we have a button to import the same images again and again, as many times as we want?
Disconnecting and reconnecting the device didn’t help, and deleting the files and containing folder from my computer didn’t do it, either. Obviously, something was keeping track of which images were being transfered. So I started digging around and found this interesting hidden file in my user folder:
C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Photo Acquisition\PreviouslyAcquired.db
I renamed it to PreviouslyAcquired.db.old, then reconnected the camera and went through the wizard again, where I was able to import the pictures a second time.
As noted in the comments below, you need to turn on Show hidden files, folders, and drives in Windows’ Folder Options dialog box in order to see the PreviouslyAcquired.db file.
Great Information. I am getting exact same messages but with my Canon Camera. Can’t find that particular file….????
Thank you so much. I was having the same problem and this fixed it!
I can’t find this file.
There is \photoacquisition\ file that I can find.
The Photo Acquisition folder is at:
C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Local\Microsoft
Where [username] is the name of the account you’re logged in to.
Open up Windows Explorer, click in the address bar, and type:
%appdata%
That will take you to the Roaming folder within your user profile folder. Just go up one level and then into the Local folder and look for a Microsoft folder.
i tried to look for the files but i can’t find “photo acquisition”. I tried to exploring the AppData and some other folders but i did not find the file that i was looking for. Is there anyway that i can find “photo acquisition” ?
Thanks so much for this…i was pulling my hair out….trying to figure this out…
thank you! this behavior is such a pain in the ass, sometime you start the copying and stop it midway to change the files name and when you restart the damn thing is blind to the files you already copied, and sometime it mistakenly think a file has already been copied, this happened to me a few times, if you don’t check the file count you might lose a couple of files, this so dumb, so microsoft…
Thank you! It’s so annoying when Windows thinks it knows better than me.
Great solution man!! I was having a bad time trying to import my pics from my iphone “again”. Thank you!
Fantastic, what a solution. Worked for me. Couldn’t get any pics on my gen4 itouch, but thanks to you, I now have them on my pc. Thanks again!!!
Do I need to reboot my computer? The fix is not working for me. I have Windows 7. Thank you.
You need to display hidden files in windows to see some of these files and folders.
what is ‘wizard and lo’?
Thank you so much for this – it was driving me mad!
I was having this problem with an iPhone 4 and Windows 7. The message appeared even before I imported photos for the first time, so renaming the “previouslyacquired” file didn’t work, nor did deleting it. Also, when I browsed to the phone in Explorer it couldn’t see any of the image files, the folder was just blank.
What I did in the end was go to Start > Control Panel > Auto Play, Devices, and under this iPhone changed the drop down from “Import pictures and videos using Windows” to “Open device to view files using Windows Explorer.” Then the image files appeared, and I could just cut and paste them to the PC.
The fix works but you have to redo it every time you attach another camera. Any suggestins for a permanent fix?
I can’t open db file in order to add “old”. What should I do?
tried all of the above..still didnt work…perhaps something “obvious” that i may have missed…appreciate the help
Thanks so much for this information, this worked like a charm! :) To rename the file you can right click on the file and go to “Rename” and then type in the new name.
Thank you for sharing this – this feature is realy stupid!
Great advice!
but to be able to rename the below file I first had to find it. I typed “show hidden” into Windows 7 search.
From there I clicked on Folder Options, the View tab, then selected the option “show hidden files folders and drives”
Once I renamed the below file and my upload worked instantly afterwards.
C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Photo Acquisition\PreviouslyAcquired.db
I had no problem changing the .db file and then downloading the photos. But once they finished downloading, I can’t find them. After checking the normal My Photos area, I tried searching my computer for any files modified today and couldn’t find them. Any suggestions? Thanks!
This was doing my head in. Good advice, although I struggled to find the AppData folder. If you have the same problem, click on ‘start’ and in the search bar type in ‘show hidden files and folders’. In there, change the settings by ticking ‘show hidden files, folders and drives’ and apply. Now from here C:\Users\[username]\ you should be able to find ‘AppData’ and be able to follow the original instructions given above.