FULL PRODUCT VERSION :
java version "1.6.0_10-beta"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.6.0_10-beta-b22)
Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build 11.0-b11, mixed mode, sharing)

ADDITIONAL OS VERSION INFORMATION :
Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600]

A DESCRIPTION OF THE PROBLEM :
ImageIO won't write a 32 bit BMP image. This is sad, since there used to be a bug where it would write 32-bit image files from 24-bit image objects. See Bug# 5076878 .




STEPS TO FOLLOW TO REPRODUCE THE PROBLEM :
ImageIO.write(RenderedImage, "BMP", File) will fail in the RenderedImage is a BufferedImage created with new BufferedImage(width, height,BufferedImage.TYPE_INT_ARGB);



EXPECTED VERSUS ACTUAL BEHAVIOR :
EXPECTED -
A 32-bit BMP file should be written, specially since this used to happen for 24-bit images as per bug # 5076878
ACTUAL -
Can't write 32-bit BMP images

REPRODUCIBILITY :
This bug can be reproduced always.

---------- BEGIN SOURCE ----------
import java.awt.Color;
import java.awt.Font;
import java.awt.Graphics2D;
import java.awt.RenderingHints;
import java.awt.image.BufferedImage;
import java.io.File;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.util.Iterator;
import javax.imageio.ImageIO;
import javax.imageio.ImageTypeSpecifier;
import javax.imageio.ImageWriter;
import javax.imageio.stream.FileImageOutputStream;

public class Main {

    public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
int width = 720;
int height = 480;
int size = 36;
int x = 20;
int baseline = 400;
Color textColor = Color.WHITE;
String msg = "Hello World";
Font font = new Font("Tahoma", Font.PLAIN, size);
        BufferedImage bi = new BufferedImage(width, height,BufferedImage.TYPE_INT_ARGB);
Graphics2D g = bi.createGraphics();
g.setColor(textColor);
g.drawString(msg, x, baseline);
g.dispose();

System.out.println("\nKnown format names:");
for (String fn : ImageIO.getWriterFormatNames()) {
System.out.println(fn);
}

Iterator<ImageWriter> iwi = ImageIO.getImageWriters(ImageTypeSpecifier.createFromBufferedImageType(BufferedImage.TYPE_INT_ARGB), "BMP");

int i = 0;
while ( iwi.hasNext()) {
ImageWriter iw = iwi.next();
try {
iw.setOutput(new FileImageOutputStream(new File ("title"+i+".bmp")));
iw.write(bi);
System.out.println("Wrote image using "+iw);
i++;
} catch(Exception ex) {
System.err.println(ex.getLocalizedMessage());
System.err.println("Can't write with "+iw);
}
}
if (i == 0) // try this way too
ImageIO.write(bi, "BMP", new File("test.bmp")) ;
    }
}

---------- END SOURCE ----------

CUSTOMER SUBMITTED WORKAROUND :
Use PNG