Nikon View: could it get any worse? A crash test review of View NX2.

I thought it could not get any worse after testing Capture NX2 and View NX1.5 - a while ago - but I was wrong.
NX2 is a major problem, at least from where I am standing. So much so, that I have not been able to thoroughly test it; not on Windows XP Pro x64 SP2 (Intel Core Duo 1.6 Ghz., 1 Tb. RAID 10, 4 Gb. RAM, GeForce 7300 GS/256) nor on a “normal” XP Pro SP3 32-bits system.
Do Nikon beta-test any of their programs at all, or do they just throw us to the lions? Worse yet: do they even care about us entrusting our precious images to their cripple-ware?

Add program - dialogue window freeze	Cut-off Edit Menu
Weird colors in Windows x64, akin v.1.5.x

It does not run or crawl. Heck, I’m lucky if it even creeps...

• At first run the program showed a “processing” message, but nothing was actually processing. Clicking on anything made it crash (on both test systems).
• The “Add” button in the “Options Menu” >> “Open with Application” is unresponsive. When the dialogue pop-up finally does open, it is (Not responding) and it is impossible to browse/scroll the available applications; generally, the program freezes.
• The Edit menu is cut off at first launch and you have to manually enlarge it. Still, on the next launch it is cut off again, while most editing operations take ages to previsualize.
• On x64 the colors become really weird (primary magenta's, reds, greens and yellows) with certain editing operations, like Brightness adjustment or D-Lighting HS, for example.
I changed the color profile of the program from ProPhoto to Nikon sRGB, to see if that solved the problem (like it does in NX 1.5 - see this article), to no avail.
• Menu actions makes the menu bar and program icon go blank and show a (Not Responding) message. The latter disappears after a while, but the program does not DO anything.
• If any menu or dialogue window finally opens, and IF is the operating word here, the scroll-bars are sluggish or do not respond, and again, the menu bars go blank (Not Responding).
• Especially on Win-32 it keeps freezing (temporarily) or crashing. This is particularly curious because it is not supposed to run on x64, but there it crashes a lot less.
• Scroll-bars will not scroll, sliders will not slide – at least not in a manner one would expect.
• The Picture Control “Launch Utility” button does not launch anything.
• It appears that the program does not like multi-tasking, because every time I launched another program, View NX2 froze.

Mapwindow with thumbnail pop-up	Mapwindow with meta-data pop-up

The only thing I like about you is your girlfriend.

The one and only thing cool about View NX2 is the geo-tagging option with Google Maps integration, which is also the only part of the interface that seems to work as expected.
And when I say cool, I mean really COOL! This is the very best gps/map integration I have seen yet, with a smooth, slick interface and the automatic location of any geo-tagged image in the current view.
View options include Map, Satellite, Hybrid (map + satellite), Google Earth and Open in (Internet) Browser.
There are path views (the route taken when shooting) and location pins which – when clicked – produce nice pop-ups with thumbnail and meta-data tabs.
There is also a search option to find locations or fill in missing geo-data.
Thus, the only thing nice about Nikon View NX2 is not “by Nikon”, but “by Google”.

Conclusion.
It was impossible to properly test Nikon View NX2, because it either runs sluggish, freezes or crashes.
Since I was not too crazy about View NX 1.5 either, I have rolled back (again) on View 6 on my 32-bit Winbox.
Unfortunately, View 6 is not Win x64 compatible (believe me, I’ve tried), which is why Windows 64-bits users (XP Pro, Vista, Windows 7) should either try their luck with View NX2 or are stuck with NX 1.5. Thank heavens I have long replaced it by Adobe Bridge & ACR.
That said, I will definitely keep NX2 on the x64 system for geo-tagging purposes, because the Google-Nikon interface is hard to beat – for the moment.
Nikon should already fire the idiot that has been doing their crippled, bullshit software for the last half decade, and hire Google instead.
Maybe then there is a spark of hope that they might finally get it right...

Note: it is possible that this program works just Hunky Dory for you.
If so, I’m glad. Please leave a comment to prove me wrong; being a fellow Nikonian, you can imagine that there are very few things that would make me happier.

See also:
22-03-2011: Nikon, Adobe and Apple release software updates for View NX, ACR & DNG converter and Digital Camera RAW