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That app is still there, hiding in the shadows of the OS. Luckily, if you’re not happy with the new Microsoft Photos, you don’t have to turn to third-party developers to find an experience similar to the old Photo Viewer. Not to mention, Photos is not the most reliable of apps, either. And, yes, Photos’ cross-platform abilities are very forward-looking as well as convenient for anyone also using a Windows tablet, but the app uses up a lot more memory than its predecessor, and in many ways is just not as easy to use as the older app.
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But for now, at least, it’s still there-even if you have to put in a little work to find it.Though Windows Photo Viewer was the default photo app on Windows 7 and 8, Microsoft replaced it with its Universal Windows Platform app simply called Microsoft Photos.
Obviously, we can’t guarantee that Microsoft will keep access to Photo Viewer around forever. You’ll only have to do this the first time you open each new type of image file. In other words, whenever you open an image that opens in the Photos app, just close the Photos app and use the “Open with” menu to associate that file type with Windows Photo Viewer. You’ll need to repeat this process for each type of image file you want to use it with. Windows Photo Viewer will now be the default image viewer for that type of image file. On the General pane, click the “Change” button to the right of “Opens With” and select Windows Photo Viewer. Update: If the “Choose Another App” option doesn’t work for some reason, here’s another way you can do it: First, right-click the type of image file you want to change (for example, a PNG, JPEG, GIF, or BMP file) and select “Properties” to open the Properties window. If you don’t see it at first, scroll to the bottom of what’s listed and click the “More apps” option-it’ll show up. In the “How do you want to open this file?” window, select Windows Photo Viewer. bmp file-and select Open With > Choose Another App. To associate an image file with Photo Viewer, right-click any type of image file-for example, a. Step Two: Set Windows Photo Viewer as Your Default Image Viewer If you upgraded from Windows 7 or 8.1, you should be able to go ahead and set Windows Photo Viewer as your default image-viewing application in all the usual ways.
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Note: A big thanks to nexus over at TenForums for locating the required registry settings.Īnd remember-this step is only necessary if you’re using a fresh Windows 10 system. You can always leave it available and just associate your image files with a different app. Of course, there’s no real need to deactivate it in the Registry. And if you ever want to deactivate it, just run the “Deactivate Windows Photo Viewer on Windows 10 (Default)” hack. Run the “Activate Windows Photo Viewer on Windows 10” hack to create the keys and values in the Registry and activate Photo Viewer. Download and unzip the following file:Īctivate-Windows-Photo-Viewer-on-Windows-10 To make things easy, we’ve put together a Registry hack you can use to make these edits quickly because they’re a little cumbersome to make manually. We’ll need to add the same registry entries that were present on Windows 7 and 8.1, and are still present on systems that upgraded from those old versions of Windows. Step One: Enable Photo Viewer in the Registry And after you do that, you can set it as your default photo app. So, how do you get Photo Viewer back? By firing up our old friend Registry Editor, of course. Photo Viewer is actually part of a DLL file named “PhotoViewer.dll” and doesn’t have a separate executable file associated with it.
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exe file to associate them with Photo Viewer, either. You also can’t simply point image files at a specific. RELATED: What Are DLL Files, and Why Is One Missing From My PC? Open it up and you can only make Photo Viewer the default association for. The old “Default Programs” Control Panel app isn’t much help, either.
If you navigate to the Default apps pane in Settings, you won’t even see Photo Viewer as an option.
#MICROSOFT WINDOWS PHOTO VIEWER WINDOWS 10 HOW TO#
RELATED: How to Set Your Default Apps in Windows 10 Microsoft really wants you to open all those image files in its new Photos app, instead.
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Those keys are kept in place if you upgrade from a previous version of Windows, but they aren’t created during the installation of Windows 10. For whatever reason, Microsoft opted not to include the Registry keys that enable access to Windows Photo Viewer on Windows 10.