So, you want to view animated gifs in Windows 7? Pretty annoying that Windows 7 no longer supports animated gifs, eh? Luckily, there are many 3rd-party tools that allow you to preview animated gif files.
Of the of the many photo viewers is Irfan View, a pretty awesome utility that you need!
1. Step Download Irfan View
2. Step During the installation make sure to check the GIF file association:
3. Step When Irfan View asks you if really want to associate one or many filetypes with Irfanview then confirm with Yes.
4. Step Next time you open an animated gif you will open, Windows 7 will automatically use Irfan View to view the animated gif .. and surprise, surprise the animations is actually working.
All gif files now don’t use that little icon of the Windows Photo Viewer, they are using that red little icon of Irfan View:
In Irfan View animations work:
There are many other tools that support animated gif’s. Unfortunately, it is not possible to preview the animations within the Windows Explorer, but you can quickly open multiple animated gif files with Irfan View, so it shouldn’t really be an issue. Is it an issue for you?
Should you have problems getting rid of the Irfan View filetype associations, there will follow a tutorial shortly that will teach you how to change the file type associations.