This is what a graphics filter looks like. Apparently, it is, and has been a problem child for Microsoft for a long time. Here's the deal:

General Problem: an image editor, viewer, or word processing program is unable to open a particular image file format.

MY particular problem: Microsoft Photo Editor and Word97 open all common image files including .jpg and .jpe, but WILL NOT open .jpeg files when I double click on them or attempt to import them into WORD documents. However, they can be viewed in internet explorer AND when I open Photo Editor and then open the file from within the program OR if I change the file extension of the .jpeg file to .jpg.

Variations on the issue: .jpg files behave this way also (but not in my case).

This problem has been associated with the following software products (and others):
Win 98 and SE
WinME
Win2k
Office 97
Office 2000
Win XP
Linux in combination with MS Office products and/or image viewers
Various versions of IE, Firefox, and Seamonkey
MSPlus!
Themes.exe
GIMP

Causes (according to Microsoft):
1) Graffics Filter file JPEGIM32.FLT has been damaged, corrupted, or is missing entirely, possibly as a result of some software overwriting the correct version, which they are apparently unwilling to specify.
Their solution is to rename the filter file (in the C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Grphflt\ directory) with a .old extension and reinstall the correct version either from the Office CD or the OS CD.
2) Graffics Filter registry entry permissions are wrong. Their solution here is to modify the permissions of the appropriate registry key using REGEDT32.EXE. This seems to only be of use when the files open correctly when the admin is logged on, but not for users.
3) Inexplicably, some version of THEMES.EXE messes with the filters somehow and their solution is to reinstall it from the Office 97 CD. I didn't even know I had THEMES.EXE on my win2k until I did a search for it.

Those are the official causes and solutions acknowledged by microsoft. Elsewhere, I have discovered there may be other problems with missing registry keys under [LOCAL MACHINE\SOFTWARE\MICROSOFT\SHARED TOOLS\GRAFFICS FILTERS\EXPORT\JPEG] and [LOCAL MACHINE\SOFTWARE\MICROSOFT\SHARED TOOLS\GRAFFICS FILTERS\IMPORT\JPEG] and many registry files are offered by techies on other tech-support sites to import in order to fix the problem, but I have yet to try them, as I don't like importing other people's .reg files without knowing EXACTLY what they are changing.

SO, here's where I am. I did all the fixes recommended by MS and none of them allowed me to double click on .jpeg files to open them with Photo Editor, nor can I import them into Word 97.

With the Jpegim32.flt file in the correct directory, I CAN (a) rename the files to .jpg and they work (b) open them by browsing to the file within Photo Editor.

If I rename Jpegim32.flt to Jpegim32.old (without adding back any version of the file), I can't open any .jpg, .jpe, .jpeg files and recieve the same error message (UNKNOWN FILE FORMAT). I did that as an experiment, however, without that file, all jpeg file formats still open normally with Internet Explorer.

MY intention is to solve this mystery WITHOUT working around it by installing another graphics viewer, operating system, or word processing program and WITHOUT changing the default program to open the file extension .jpeg.

Granted, this is a minor irritation, but I feel the answer is out there somewhere and the fact Photo Editor, Office 97, and .jpeg files are still widely used and microsoft has not yet figured out the real problem, it's just that much more intriguging to me. Anyone else interested in taking on this challenge?

SOLVED!!! Maybe just writing it out helped, but I also found and downloaded Microsoft Photo Editor 3.01 in the same directory as the original program 3.00. Now all programs associated work *as advertised*. I'm amazed. I do hope someone else stumbles on this thread someday and it helps.