Default Photos app - fixing for specific user accounts

Scottyboy99 · 08 Feb 2016

Is there anyway to fix the photos app for a specific user account? On my main admin account it works ok. But there was a series of updates to some of the native apps a few days ago, one of those was the photos app. Since then the photos app will not work on my wife and son's user accounts (both standard accounts). Clicking on it brings up nothing. When I went into the store for their own accounts and searched for photos it actually gave an option to install it. I tried that and it went through the motions downloading/acquiring license but it made no difference. Still doesn't launch the app for them.

I don't particulary want to have to go through the process of deleting their accounts and setting them back up (which is time consuming). Creating a new user account does get the user a working photos app (as I did a test). Is there a simple way to do it without potentially breaking the photos app on other accounts (where it is currently working)?

I am aware of powershell fixes but I have read some horrible stories where the code just makes things worse and breaks a lot more especially in the current build of 10586. I'd want any attempted fix to be purely isolated to the affected user's account.

It does seem that the native apps have some pretty bad problems with updating and breaking down. Sometimes I go into the store and look at the check for updates section and see them seemingly stuck in the update process. Sometimes they need a bump to get them going. There seems to be a riskiness to when they are auto updating on my own user account and how it can translate to the other user accounts. In this latest scenario the photos app has been rendered useless for half the users of my computer. Why MS cannot make their own apps easy to uninstall and re-install is beyond me. All other non MS apps are easy to work with and can be uninstalled and reinstalled with comfort. Plus unlike the MS native apps they seem to have no trouble updating themselves!

Thanks,
Wayne

dalchina · 13 Feb 2016

Hi, can't give you an exact answer to your main question about issues between accounts, but I think the way MS means this to play out is that the set of Universal apps provided in Windows is meant to
a. always exist
b. be transparently updated

That is, you shouldn't have to intervene. And if you don't want to use them, simply ignore them. As with their implementation, it's a new model. And then think... how many people uninstall Paint, Notepad, Wordpad?

Note that there is a scheduled task to check for app updates- it should happen automatically. Maybe it's safer to leave updates to that.

I suggest if there's no easy solution to your account problem, that you simply use a 3rd party desktop program. I'm sure you know there are plenty around. Unsatisfactory... but avoids trouble. And it's not such a big issue that some universal apps aren't available.

Scottyboy99 · 13 Feb 2016

Thank you , I ended up deleting and creating the user accounts again which fixed things but not an ideal solution. If it happens again I will follow your advice to use third party apps. I know a few, gallery HD impressed me although having no print option is a glaring omission. As you say, plenty of alternatives

cheers, Wayne