Get Windows Photo Viewer back on Windows 10 to view photos faster, Photos is too slow!

Are you frustrated when opening photos with Photos on Windows 10? Waiting for it to open is long, waiting for it to show up is even more crazy, especially when the photos are heavy, not to mention, after using Windows 10 for quite a while, I still can't "absorb" the navigation style of Photos.

If you don't like Photos on Windows 10 and want to view photos using Windows Photo Viewer on Windows 10, follow this guide to bring Windows Photo Viewer to Windows 10, helping you view photos faster.

Why is Photos slower than Windows Photo Viewer?

Everything has its reasons. It's not that Photos is not good, it's just that it's not optimized enough for users. To be fair, Windows Photo Viewer is simply a photo viewer, can rotate upside down photos , zoom, that is, it provides the most basic photo viewing features. As for Photos, besides all the features of Windows Photo Viewer, it also has some photo editing tools such as filters, cropping, and brightness adjustment, so Photos is definitely heavier and slower than Windows Photo Viewer.

But, honestly speaking (perhaps not only me, but many other Windows 10 users) rarely use the additional features of Photos. Wanting to draw on photos, mark photos is not possible. Cropping photos is probably used more, but it does not allow cropping to a fixed size. For more in-depth photo editing, there are many photo editing apps and software with much better tools than Photos. I think Microsoft needs to improve Photos more if users want to be satisfied with it.

If you are like me, can't stand the slow speed of Photos, want to view photos faster, "revive" Windows Photo Viewer and set Windows Photo Viewer as the default photo viewing application on Windows 10. Below are detailed instructions, probably less than a minute.

Reviving Windows Photos Viewer on Windows 10

Get back Windows Photos Viewer using .reg file

All you need to do here is download the *.reg file of Windows Photo Viewer on Windows 10 to your computer:

• Windows 10 1809 you download this file to get back Windows Photos Viewer .
• Windows 10 Older Restore Windows Photo Viewer on Windows 10

Unzip, open the folder containing the file *.reg, you can double-click on the file Restore_Windows_Photo_Viewer.reg , or right-click on the file and select Merge:

A message will appear asking you to allow the file to make changes to Windows 10 and warning that this file adds information to the registry, which can cause errors. Don't worry, just click Yes, I'm the guinea pig.

To check if Windows Photo Viewer is successfully installed, right-click on any photo, select Open With , if you see Windows Photo Viewer (or Open With > Choose another app > Windows Photos Viewer ), it's correct.

And here is our result, the familiar interface of Windows Photo Viewer :

For those of you who run the *.regabove file but still do not see the Windows Photo Viewer option , it is because your account is in User rights, so merging the file *.reginto the system will not work. To fix this error, please log out and log in to an account with Administrator rights, run the file again *.regand then log in to the account you are using.

"Revive" Windows Photos Viewer through the Restore Windows Photo Viewer to Windows 10 tool

Restore Windows Photo Viewer to Windows 10 is a software package that allows users to restore the default Windows Photo Viewer tool, even when using the latest version of the operating system (Windows 10). This tool can be quite useful, as some individuals have complained that the newer version is difficult to operate. The main problem is that although the original viewer is still present, it is difficult to find. Restore Windows Photo Viewer to Windows 10 will help you solve this problem.

Restore Windows Photo Viewer to Windows 10 is a viable replacement for the current built-in photo app. It is a direct mirror image of the classic version, so users can enjoy the familiar layout once again. The system is quite flexible and it can handle a number of file types. These include JPEG, .JPG, .JPE, and JFIF formats. This is a multi-user package, so changes can be made system-wide if required.

It is a user-friendly image viewer and can easily select the images to be uploaded, as well as their file types. It is only 1.25 megabytes in size and there are no additional applications to download. Once installed, the package can be activated immediately.

Download Restore Windows Photo Viewer to Windows 10

Set Windows Photo Viewer as the default photo viewer on Windows 10

Method 1: Using Windows Settings

To now have Windows Photo Viewer open every time you double-click a photo, do the following:

Step 1: After successfully installing Windows Photo Viewer , restart your computer.

Step 2: Type default app settingsin the search bar and select Default app settings .

Step 3: In the right pane, look for the option named Photo viewer.

Step 4 : Click Photos, select Windows Photo Viewer.

And that's it, the familiar, lightning-fast Windows Photo Viewer is back with you!

Method 2: Use Open with

If changing the default app settings doesn't work, try the following.

Step 1: Right- click on the photo you want to open with Windows Photo Viewer , select Open with > Choose another app .

Step 2: In the menu that opens, select Windows Photo Viewer and check the option Always use this app to open .png (this may be different depending on the file format you are opening) files as shown, click OK .

The Windows Photo Viewer icon will replace Photo in front of the photo name and open the familiar photo viewing window.

Note, with this method, images with the same format as the image you just selected will automatically be opened by default with Windows Photo Viewer. To open another image format, you need to select 1 image in that format and repeat the above steps. Here I did it with .png and .jpg.

Video tutorial to get back Windows Photo Viewer on Windows 10

Note:

If you upgrade from Windows 7/8.1 to Windows 10 , the system will display the Windows Photo Viewer option as the application to open and view photos, but if you choose to install Windows 10 directly , you will not be able to find Windows Photos Viewer on the system.

We can simply deduce that Microsoft has "retired" the Windows Photos Viewer application (this application has been around for a long time, since Windows XP or 2000, or even before) and replaced it with a rather new and strange Photos feature. If you dig into Settings > System > Default apps, you will not be able to find it:

Or when you check in Control Panel > Default Programs > Set Default Programs > Windows Photos Viewer , you will only see that this application supports 2 image formats: *.tif and *.tiff:

Good luck!

See more: How to download and install Windows Media Player 12 on Windows 10