Release Notes for IMatch 2025.6.2 (UNRELEASED)

[axel.hennig]

I was reading the realease notes for IMatch 2025.6.2 (currently unreleased) and was wondering about #02891 (Hide IMatch from Screen Recorders and Windows Recall).

What is the use-case for this?

And btw what is "Windows Recall"? Never heard about this functionality.

[Mario]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Recall

It's a highly controversial feature.

The ability to "hide" IMatch from Windows Recall recording it is a privacy feature. If your PC runs Recall or other screen recording software, you can protect the images of your friends and family shown by IMatch from being recorded if you want.

[mopperle]

IMatch becomes invisible for screen recording devices

Wondering how you will hide IMatch from my smartphone 

[axel.hennig]

Thank for clarifying. Wasn't aware of Recall.

[Mario]

It's not something that affects many people yet. Currently Microsoft limits this to computers with the "Copilot" logo - which means a NPU of at least 40 TOPS (AI coprocessor). Since even mid-range laptop graphic cards have 200 to 400 TOPs now, the Recall feature could soon become available on a wider range of Windows installations.

It's a feature probably no one ever called for. Not sure. Windows recording everything you do on your PC and analyzing it with AI for your "benefit"?

Many security issues have been found already and Microsoft had to recall Recall for several months to fix at least things like an unencrypted SQLite database with all the Recall info and AI results, accessible for all users! The fact that the even let this out of the lab with so little privacy and security tells me all I need to know. They still record payment data like credit card info, passwords ans other stuff you definitely don't want an AI to see. And who knows who else can see it?

Who needs Recall, except people with a job in the employee monitoring department or various 3 letter agencies.

After I've learned that it is (still) possible to disable recording for specific application windows, I've added this to IMatch. It was quick to do, just a new option and some resources.

The feature is there when people need it.
I've heard several web browser vendors have implemented this too. And other applications.

[Jingo]

Sigh... I've been a Windows user my whole life and have little desire to head into the murky waters of Linux, etc... but these type of "features" from Microsoft makes for compelling reasons to jump ship... 

[Mario]

I use Linux on servers and my laptop boots both Windows 11 and Ubuntu Linux. And I use both.
It's awesome for servers and it has made some progress on the desktop. But I use many applications which only exist for Windows (or Mac, for some), so there is no way for me to actually work on Linux.

A problem with Linux is, it goes way over the head of most "normal" people.
Yes it works, and there are neat distributions that look similar to Windows. And they work, in general, if the software you need exists. Or when you only need a web browser.

If something does not work, a bit of command line work and editing some configuration files usually gets things done.
Maybe you have to spend a couple of hours in various support boards, getting told RTFM occasionally 

Another problem is that there is not one Linux. There are many distributions, based on different versions of the Linux kernel, using different desktop environments in different versions, different display servers, different package distribution and update mechanisms etc.

This multiplies compatibility issues, makes it harder to find help or tips, to fix broken things with command lines or configuration file edits. You always have to consider the distribution you run, the version, the display manager and whatnot.

This works for IT folks who are used to this. It also works if you just use a Linux installation somebody else maintains for you. But would I recommend Linux to my family and friends who are not in IT? No. At least not yet. Because I know who they call when something does not work  

But since more and more users only need a web browser for work, the operating system becomes more and more irrelevant. Most users basically "boot" into their browser and that's that.

[mopperle]

Sigh... I've been a Windows user my whole life and have little desire to head into the murky waters of Linux, etc... but these type of "features" from Microsoft makes for compelling reasons to jump ship...

No need to do this. What Mario said is absolutely true and the reason why Linux as Dekstop OS never got a significant marketshare and stays with a 1 digit percentage (worldwide below 4%) and this since ages.

All my customers (enterprise business) used Linux as server OS, but nearly none of them seriously considered Linux as desktop OS. The few who did, did it for political reasons.

[Stenis]

Linux never happened! It has been there for decades but never took off and the reason is that not one single industry standard application I know off is written for Linux.

In the nineties when IBM and Microsoft ceased to cowork and instead decided to split their network software path and IBM developed OS/2 and took Lotus and Wordperfect with them out in the software desert both IBM, Lotus and Wordperfect got marginalized when the wast majority went Windows instead despite it was far inferior to OS/2 technically.

OS/2 was doomed when Microsoft ended porting MS Excel to OS/2 with version 2.21 or so. Some people has put far to much in the importance of operating systems. It is the applications that established Windows and not the other way around. An operating system without industry standard application support will never take off and will stay marginalized.

The reason Apple OS survived was because Microsoft decided to port Office. That would not have happened either if if not the American authorities had been threathening to split Microsoft that had become to dominating. They got accused of missuseing their control of the OS in order to favour their own application-development and stealing other companies know how since they were so dependant of Microsoft adapting their softwares to Windows.

A long time it was Apple who never managed to reach a market share of more than 5-6% despite what they tried. At that time Apple was just an alibi for Microsoft for not being split by the authorities, Apple took off mostly by the help of the telephones that boosted Apples good will. Still a lot of important Windows-applications have never been ported to Apple OS and still Windows and nothing else is industry standard. Apple dominates a few nisches after decades. That is all.

Linux is nothing on desktops and never will be. In fact it seems to struggle with exactly the same problem as UNIX once did and that is not surprising because isn't Linux buillt on the ruins of UNIX. For of five letters in Linux are still the same as the ones in UNIX.

[Stenis]

Where are these release notes 2025.6.2 to be found? I haven't seen any.

[sybersitizen]

Where are these release notes 2025.6.2 to be found? I haven't seen any.

They're in the usual place:

https://www.photools.com/release-notes/

[Stenis]

OpenAI: Support for GPT 5#02890
IMatch AutoTagger now supports the new GPT 5-mini and GPT 5

Thank you Sybersitizen!

Mario, when do you think the version 2025.6.2 or whatever it might be called get released?

I have patiently been waiting for it and hoped every Monday to find the real release notes in a new post in the usual place that is flagged, but so far with poor luck. I´m very aware of the release Open AI Chat GPT 5 release disaster but I also have been using it extensively and really like.

The reason I want to test it is because I never were totally able to handle some of the problems that both version 4o and 4.1 had when it came to following my prompting instructions properly, which always have affected the productivity negatively since that always have meant manual editing which have canibalized the productivity gains of AutoTagger.

The version 5 is better to take and follow my instructions I think and that is why I really want to give version 5 a real try instead of the earlier versions.

[Mario]

Mario, when do you think the version 2025.6.2 or whatever it might be called get released?

When it is good and ready. I generally aim at a 2 to 3 months release cycle, depending on how much work I have to put in new enhancements. If a critical bug is found, I may ship an update over night.

If this is so very critical for you, you can replace the AI configuration file IMatch uses with the one attached below.
This gives you access to the GPT-5 models. These have improvements for reasoning and math, not sure if their image recognition capabilities has also improved. Give it a spin.

1. Download the attached file and unzip it.
2. Close IMatch.
3. Make a backup copy of the file with the same name in "C:\ProgramData\photools.com\IMatch6\config" on your computer.
4. Then replace the existing file with the one from the ZIP.

[Stenis]

Mario, when do you think the version 2025.6.2 or whatever it might be called get released?

When it is good and ready. I generally aim at a 2 to 3 months release cycle, depending on how much work I have to put in new enhancements. If a critical bug is found, I may ship an update over night.

If this is so very critical for you, you can replace the AI configuration file IMatch uses with the one attached below.
This gives you access to the GPT-5 models. These have improvements for reasoning and math, not sure if their image recognition capabilities has also improved. Give it a spin.

Mario, when do you think the version 2025.6.2 or whatever it might be called get released?

When it is good and ready. I generally aim at a 2 to 3 months release cycle, depending on how much work I have to put in new enhancements. If a critical bug is found, I may ship an update over night.

If this is so very critical for you, you can replace the AI configuration file IMatch uses with the one attached below.
This gives you access to the GPT-5 models. These have improvements for reasoning and math, not sure if their image recognition capabilities has also improved. Give it a spin.

Many thanks! It might mean a lot if it works. When the summer has finished and the autumn is here my really serious iMatch season begin. I'm about to process and reprocess some thousands of safari pictures taken between 1972 and 2016. Both the pictures and the metadata, since the software has improved a lot since I processed some of it earlier.

I will give you some feed back on how it behaves.

[Stenis]

I have tried that file now but it doesn´t work at all. I get a yellow banner that says it has added the pictures to a certain cathegory ... where I am supposed to be able to examine them.

It looks like this file is not compatible with the current model at all.
It might not be as simple as just switching that file
I see the version 5 and 5-mini in the list and can use them but they don´t do any job.
I also get no direct error message - just the yellow banner for after a while

When I add the old file it works like expected.

I have tried several times and rebooted between and that doesn´t help either.

[Mario]

Works here just fine. The "Yellow banner" is not by chance the "Files with Problems" notification AutoTagger uses?

The log file will, as always, include the the response OpenAI has sent when AutoTagger requested, and this would allow us to tell what the problem is. Since no log file was attached, we have no idea.

I've just tried it, and I get now this warning:

"You exceeded your current quota, please check your plan and billing details. For more information on this error, read the docs: https://platform.openai.com/docs/guides/error-codes/api-errors.",

Which warnings do you see in the log file?

Update:

I've just had to give them more money, my stash was exceeded. Very strange, I could have sworn I had 4US$ left on my account. After uploading more money, both GPT-5 (very expensive) and GPT5-mini work. I'm using the same settings file as you do.

The actual error message or warning from your log file will tell us what the problem is on your end.

[Stenis]

"It was files with problem"

I did put in 12 U@ that I have not used so it can´t be that.

I will look for the log file.

When I switch back to the old file it worked again.

Are you sure that you are using version 2025.5 and not a newer one that synchs with this new file too?

I will try to raise the "Rate Limits" too.
I think it is a little problem that the data set i Rate Limits doesn´t match the set in Open AI for the different API-versions.