In reply to The Lemming:
> My confusion continues and I genuinely do not know where I am going wrong.
> So far I have wiped my computer clean and reinstalled a Windows 10 operating system onto an SSD. I have deleted all Adobe Lightroom catalogues and reinstalled Lightroom 5.7. As far as I can tell, I have everything at default settings and not something that I may have ticked or changed by user stupidity.
Note the LR 5 default is NOT to save tags to file. You can still view them in LR itself as they are in the saved catalogue, but not outwith unless you do save them either automatically or manually.
> I took a sample RAW file and added keywords to the file before saving them. This gave me a sidecar file.
> I then exported the RAW file to a DNG file. I could then add keywords to that DGN file and the keywords could then be read by Lightroom.
> My problem still exists though that I can not see or read any keyword files when I get windows explorer and choose properties. There are no tags or keywords.
Did you install the win 10 dng codec? IIRC I needed that to view in win 10 since it is not campatible as downloaded.
> What is even more strange is that when I use EXIF Pilot it too does not show any tags or keywords. However in the XMP properties it has an Adobe_Lightroom section where the keywords are recorded.
Can't comment as I have only ever used LR to add tags.
> Some how Lightroom is recording keywords but in such a way that the keywords can only be seen and read by Lightroom.
If it's not saving to file then this would be the case.
> Am I doing something wrong, or should the tags/keywords be easily read by Windows 10 file explorer and other photo viewing software?
My understanding is reading tags in Win 10 explorer will not happen unless you install the codec, but should in other software if they have this capability. Other thoughts are in your other post
https://www.ukhillwalking.com/forums/t.php?t=668546&v=1#x8609492 .
I'm far from IT knowledgeable, and as I said I can view tags for DNG files in all software I use including explorer file properties. If it were me I would still think something is wrong with your version of LR and I personally would upgrade to LR6/7. Do you have LR on disc or was it a download? If you don't want to upgrade and if you bought LR 5 from Adobe can you not get a direct download from them as they will know you have it if you have registered your copy?
Afraid I can't help any more being beyond my knowledge, but a final thought ... are you getting various dialogue boxes shown when you attempt manual saves, or closing without saving tags, etc? If not I'm more inclined to think LR is corrupted.
Anyway, hope you get it sorted somehow. I do think LR is a great tool.