Irfanview Doesn't Open or Convert NEFs (RAW Nikon files)

Question

I wanted to convert a bunch of NEF (Nikon camera RAW files) to JPG with IrfanView (I remembered it had such an option), but it wouldn't work—it started the batch but just gave errors like:

Error! Can't load [file name here]

Without any further explanation.

When I tried to just open NEF files, it gave another error:

Can't load PlugIn: "FORMATS.DLL"

This is despite the fact that I had formats.dll in the Plugins directory as instructed.

Answer 1

It turned out that the Irfanview website still lists the 32-bit plugins as default on their website, and it's not clear at all that this won't work for the 64-bit version of IrfanView (it's not clear that there are 64-bit plugins in the first place, but also the site actually says that most 32-bit plugins will work automatically).

Formats.dll is one of the plugins that needs to be downloaded in its x64 version. Their website has a link to 64-bit plugins in the plugin page, so if you are running Irfanview x64, make sure to get that.