Does bitmap file type still exist?

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:confused: :huh:
Hi fellow IT guru’s

I regularly used to generate a bitmap image on my previous OS (simply by right-clicking in any folder or on the desktop and selecting ‘New’); my new
Win 8.1 machine’s context-menu doesn’t have this option.
Is it somehow possible to add bitmap to 8.1’s context-menu? Or doesn’t bitmap exist in 8.1 anymore?

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It should be there (and on the ribbon home tab in Win 8 File explorer), but you can fix it with a download if it’s missing:

How to Remove and Restore the Default “New” Context Menu Items in Windows 7 and Windows 8

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Thanks Bruce, I’ll give it a try tonight.

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The bitmap file type should still exist. It isn’t the most popular file type anymore because it tends to generate big files, sometimes very big. GIF files have also fallen out of favour, though I think for somewhat different reasons.

These days JPEG (aka JPG) files are probably the most common. The PNG format has achieved some modest popularity too.

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The bitmap file type should still exist. It isn’t the most popular file type any more because it tends to generate big files, sometimes very big. GIF files have also fallen out of favour, though I think for somewhat different reasons.

These days JPEG (aka JPG) files are probably the most common. The PNG format has achieved some modest popularity too.

I think the OP was really asking about his File > New menu rather than the existence of bitmap files per se, but when selecting a format I would suggest that ‘horses for courses’ is usually more apposite than popularity.
JPG is great for photos, because it offers far more compression than other formats, but should be avoided for cartoon-like images, line drawings and ones with text because it adds annoying artefacts around such features.
For a lot of purposes other than photos, PNG is good because it includes zip compression. Use it for screenshots (and if there is a photo on the screen background, turn it off temporarily).
GIF has largely been supplanted these days by PNG, but is used for animation, which PNG does not support.
TIF remains the granddaddy of the image world, supporting a wide variety of internal formats which is both its strength and weakness — not all viewers support all the possibilities. It is great for multi-page files (that contain more than one image) and for formats like CCITC Fax 4 which provides unparalleled compression on monochrome images.

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You can still save Windows Paint drawings as a BMP but as previously mentioned, they can become quite big.

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Thanks for your input everyone – I got it back.

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To the question. It looks like you will have to edit your registry to add a new “New” option, as shown here:

http://www.askvg.com/how-to-add-remove-items-from-new-menu-in-windows/

The article body says a restart is not required after but several of the comments indicate they needed one.

Standard warnings for editing the registry apply. Namely, there are no safeties when using the Registry Editor and you can damage your system severely if you aren’t careful. Making a registry backup prior to this work is a good idea.

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