Your computer isn't able to read the file format and so it can't open the files. If you were running windows 98 you could simply go into windows explorer, double-click on the files and type in ".jpg" after the file name and it would convert those files to jpg. files. I would get a hold of your friend and ask him to convert the photos to jpeg format and resend them. Beyond that, I downloaded picasa 3 from google (it's free) and I love that program. Good luck! =)