Restore Windows photo viewer in Windows 10

Well, I might be writing this article late, but as they say, better late than never. Windows 10 comes with a modern app known as Photos, which is a replacement for the Windows Photo Viewer that has been present for ages in Windows.

A comparison of Windows Photo Viewer and photos app

While the Photos app offers many more features than the traditional photo viewer, such as editing and sharing options, many people, including myself, still prefer Windows Photo Viewer. Sometimes the Photos app takes an excessive amount of time to load even a small photo, and there are instances when the app fails to open altogether.

To resolve these issues, restoring Windows Photo Viewer is a great option. Although it still exists in Windows 10, its functionality is limited to opening only TIFF files (which, by the way, are quite common). However, with a simple registry edit, we can restore Windows Photo Viewer to support other common file extensions, such as JPG and GIF.

Download

Download the registry edit to restore Windows photo viewer

Open the downloaded file, and press yes when prompted.
Afterwards, you would be asked “How to open this kind of file??”
Select the Windows Photo Viewer once, and you’re done!

Undo changes

Registry script to Restore photos app as default