My coworker Jeff (gotblog?) sent me an email this morning pointing out that Microsoft has released it's WinXP add-in that lets you view and work with RAW images right in the OS as a natively viewable fomat.

"The Microsoft RAW Image Thumbnailer and Viewer is a free "PowerToy" for Microsoft Windows XP that provides the ability to view, organize, and print photos captured in RAW image formats from supported digital cameras."

Download here (47.7MB file)

And don't miss this related whitepaper if you're interested in working with RAW photos in Windows:

Whitepaper: Viewing and Organizing RAW Images in Windows XP