One of my most missed Windows XP utilities since moving to Windows Vista has been the Image Resizer PowerToy released by Microsoft a few years back. They released a whole bunch of PowerToys and this was hands-down the most useful out of them all.

This tool allowed you to select a bunch of images then just right-click on one and select resize to create smaller copies of them alongside the originals. I found this tool extremely useful when wanting to send high-quality photos I’d taken to friends over an Instant Messaging client like MSN.

Windows Vista comes with a handful of simple photo editing tools built into Windows Photo Gallery including tools to fix exposure, colour and red eye and it even comes with a tool to crop your picture, but an image resizing tool is nowhere to be found. Why they would skip such a fundamental photo editing tool I don’t know.

However, a quick search tonight has come up with an application that very closely mimics the operation of the original Microsoft PowerToy, and also adds a couple of extra features on top. The name of this application is VSO Image Resizer and it is available as a free download from their site, VSO Software.

Once installed it really does act just like the Microsoft PowerToy. Select a photo or two, right-click and select VSO Image Resizer from the context-menu then select the size you want and hit “OK”, it will create your resized images alongside the old ones.

Take a look at VSO’s website for some screenshots and more information and of course to download the application.

If you’re still using Windows XP and want the Image Resizer PowerToy you can still find it on Microsoft’s PowerToys page.