Fred mentioned this post this morning and I realized I didn't reply. I don't use any of those swiss army knife tools so I had to look it up and then forgot to post here afterward. It turns out tools like Faststone and Irfanview do decode the real raws now. I believe there was a time (perhaps years ago early on) that they just "cheated" and extracted the embedded JPEG but I think all of them now have real raw support.
Mike,
Do you think Jeff is a traitor?
Fred
Hello Both and thanks for replies. I am just back on line after a 14day BB Failure.
No Fred, I am not a traitor. My question was Camera club related. They consider Faststone processes Raws
I think it uses or did use the embedded jpeg.
In fact I have just done a test and stripped a 13meg .orf and get two images in Faststone an .orf at 7.68 meg and a jpg at 7.68 meg and no difference on screen.
Now back to catching up on a 14 day history.
Jeff