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Why does IE save pictures from the Web in bitmap format even though the pictures exist in another format?

A. This problem in Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) will manifest when you attempt to save a picture to disk and your only option is to save the picture as a .bmp file instead of as a native .gif or .jpg file. Because several situations can lead to this problem, I've listed them below along with a suggested solution.

  • Your Temporary Internet files cache is full - Delete the temporary Internet files by selecting Tools, Internet Options, General tab, then clicking Delete Files.
  • You selected 'Do not save encrypted pages to disk' under Tools, Internet Options, Advanced tab and are loading the page over a secure connection (i.e., HTTP over Secure Sockets Layer--HTTPS) - Uncheck the 'Do not save encrypted pages to disk' option and select View, Refresh to reload the page.
  • You connect to a Web site using an address that contains a username and password (e.g., http://<username:password@site>/default.htm instead of http://<site>/default.htm) – To remedy this problem, perform the following steps:
    1. Open the Temporary Internet Files directory, and locate the image that you attempted to save.
    2. Right-click the image, and click Open.
    3. When the image loads into IE, right-click the image, and click Save Picture As. The file type and name should be correct.
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