Google Earth installed, but still can’t use Google Picasa geotagging features

I was trying to plot a bunch of photos against geography using Picasa’s geotagging features, but it kept prompting me to install Google Earth. This was weird because I already have Google Earth Pro 7.1 installed. So I tried the following:

  • Did not work: copied googleearth.exe from C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Google Earth Pro\client to C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Google Earth Pro\
  • Did not work: installed Google Earth 7.1 (standard versus pro).
  • Did not work: same action I tried initially, except using Google Earth Standard’s executable location, i.e. copied googleearth.exe from C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Google Earth\client to C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Google Earth\
  • WORKED: installed Google Earth 7.0 (instead of the most current version, 7.1). I restarted Picasa after installing the older version of Google Earth and the geotagging features worked as expected.

To download previous version 7.0 of Google Earth, go to http://www.google.com/earth/download/ge/agree.html and where it says “Customize your installation of Google Earth with advanced setup,” click the advanced setup link. Check the radio button for “Previous version (7.0)” and click “Agree and Download.”