A recent Picasa update (3.9 build 136.18) broke some of the functionality of the Import feature. Some people couldn’t import pictures from their camera at all. I found that I had to click the dropdown arrow to select my camera – when I hadn’t had to do that before. They have since issued the next ‘build’ 136.19 and that problem has gone away.
What Version Do You Have?
To check what version of Picasa you have, click on the Help menu, then About Picasa. You will see a screen that looks like the following image. Notice the numbers that are highlighted in yellow – that’s your version and build.
How Do You Upgrade?
If you have Automatic Updates turned on, you should get notices automatically when there is a new version and you will be prompted to install it. To see if you have Automatic Updates turned on, click on Tools->Options->General. Towards the bottom of the dialog box, you should see Automatic Updates and your choices are: Update Automatically, Ask Before Downloading Updates, Don’t Check for Updates. Update Automatically is usually the right choice.
If you want to manually check for updates, you can click on Help->Check for Updates. If there is an update available, it will start downloading and it will update when you click OK. If it reports that “the application is up to date” and you know that is not true, you can always go to www.picasa.google.com and click on Download Picasa. Once it is downloaded, you need to open and run the picasa39-setup.exe to install it. Don’t worry, you won’t end up with two copies, it will just overwrite your existing software. It doesn’t touch your photos, everything will be just the same, you’ll just have the latest version of the program.
