How to To Bring Back Photo Viewer in Windows 10

I know you all love the ease and the looks of the original Photo Viewer which is not the default in Windows 10. It is super easy to use Photo Viewer, and quick.

However, in Windows 10; this is not the case. What actually happens is when you try and open a photo it asks you to choose an option from the Photos metro app, Paint, or GIMP.

In this guide, I will walk you through the steps to set the Photo Viewer as your default.

Using Command Prompt

1. First of all, we need to find an existing image and note down its path. To make the entire process easy, open a notepad file first. You can do this by Holding Windows Key and Pressing R, then in the Run dialog type notepad and Click OK.
2. In notepad, copy/paste the image page, locate an image on your system or download any, right-click on it and select Properties
3. From Properties, note down its exact path in notepad ex: C:\users\john\desktop\image1.jpg
4. Then, in a new line in notepad, copy-paste the command below:

   %SystemRoot%\System32\rundll32.exe "%ProgramFiles%\Windows Photo Viewer\PhotoViewer.dll", ImageView_Fullscreen

5. So you now have two lines in the notepad, the first is the path to the image and the second one is the long one from the grey box.
6. Now copy the path and add it to the end of the second line after Fullscreen, this should then become

   %SystemRoot%\System32\rundll32.exe "%ProgramFiles%\Windows Photo Viewer\PhotoViewer.dll", ImageView_Fullscreen C:\users\john\desktop\image1.jpg

7. Now copy the entire line starting from % till the .jpg, select all of it, right-click and select copy.
8. Hold Windows  key and Press R. In the run dialog, paste the command, and then click OK
9. This will open the image in the Photo  Viewer.
10. Close it, and now try to open the same image directly.

You will now get the option to specify the Photo Viewer as the default program for opening/viewing pictures.

Using Registry Editor

If the command prompt method doesn’t work, you can also try using the Registry editor and see if solves the problem. Download the registry file from here and save it to an accessible location. Right-click on it and select Run as administrator. After the registry file is run, restart your computer and check if the editor is changed.