How to Restore Windows Photo Viewer in Windows 10

In this tutorial, we are going to see how to restore Windows Photo Viewer in Windows 10. When you switched your computer to Windows 10, you might have noticed that the Windows Photo Viewer has been replaced by the Photos application.

If for some reason you don’t like the new Photos application in Windows 10, you still have the option to restore the old Windows Photo Viewer that you had in Windows (7 or 8.1).

But be careful, this option will only be present if and only if you have upgraded from Windows 7/8.1 to Windows 10. If you have formatted your disk for a clean installation of Windows 10, this option will not be present.

Indeed, Microsoft has made the choice to not include Windows Photo Viewer within Windows 10. Who knows why…

So, how to recover Windows Photo Viewer? Well, simply by adding a key (which you can download below) to the Windows 10 Registry Editor. After that, you will be able to set Windows Photo Viewer as your default photo viewer again.
 

 

How to Restore Windows Photo Viewer in Windows 10

Step 1: To do this, you just need to download the registry key to enable Windows Photo Viewer on Windows 10.

Step 2: Unzip the downloaded file and double-click the .reg file, and it will be automatically added to your system.

This step is only necessary if you have performed a “clean” installation of Windows 10. For those who upgraded from Windows 7 or 8.1, you should normally be able to set up Windows Photo Viewer as the default photo viewer without downloading the above registry key.
 

 

 

Setting up Windows Photo Viewer as a default app in Windows 10

Step 1: To set up Windows Photo Viewer as your default photo viewer, simply right-click on an image – for example, a .png, .jpg, .gif, or .bmp – then click Open with, and select Choose another application.
 

 
Step 2: Then click on the option More applications, select Windows Photo Viewer from the list, enable the option Always use this application to open files, and click OK.
 

 
Windows Photo Viewer will be the default application for the type of image file you selected. Note that you will have to repeat this process for each type of image file you want to open with it.