On Windows 11 and Windows 10, images open by default with the Photos application. However, this application sometimes takes too long to launch and load images. A heresy for an image viewer that should normally know how to open an image in a flash, especially with our current computers.
Before Windows 11 and 10, it was another viewer that took care of that: the Windows Photo Viewer. Even if it doesn’t have advanced features like the Photos application, it could open all types of images quickly.
For a while, it was still possible to use Windows Photo Viewer by selecting the “Open with” option in the context menu. But nowadays, this is no longer possible.
Fortunately, solutions exist to find the old classic Windows Photo Viewer on Windows 11 and Windows 10 and use it instead of the Photos application. This is the purpose of this tutorial: we will see how to restore the Windows Photo Viewer on Windows 11 and Windows 10 to (finally) open your pictures quickly!
Note: you will have to restore the Windows Photo Viewer after each installation of a quality update and a feature update.
Restore Windows Photo Viewer on Windows 11 and 10
via the Registry
To restore Windows Photo Viewer on Windows 11 and Windows 10 through a change in the Registry, follow these instructions:
1. Download The File Here: Restore_Windows_Photo_Viewer_CURRENT_USER.reg and Undo_Restore_Windows_Photo_Viewer_CURRENT_USER.reg
2. Double-click on the file Enable Classic Photo Viewer then validate the changes in the Registry.
3. Go to a folder where there are images.
Right-click on an image > Open with > Choose another application.
4. Click on More Applications > select Windows Photo Viewer, check the box Always use this application to open .xxx files and then click on OK.
That’s it, Windows Photo Viewer will now be the default application for the type of image file you selected (in the example above all .jpg images will now be opened with Windows Photo Viewer).
Repeat the same operation for all other image file types you want to open with Windows Photo Viewer: .jpg, .jpeg, .gif, .png…