How to open .HEIC files

I just got a bunch of photos from a friends' iPhone but I can't open them on my Windows 10. They are all encoded as .heic files:




If I open any of those files in the Photos app, it shows that it can't read them. If I then go into Settings and scroll down, it has this link:



Which opens the Store app:




The thing that irks me is that they want money for that.

Does anyone know how I can open those pictures without paying Microsoft more money?

Ghot said:

My Windows 10 came with the HEIF media extensions?

Interesting I see them too:



But it doesn't work in Explorer. Shall I do something to make it work?

Ah, man. This is so annoying. I just logged in with my Hotmail account and it still shows $0.99. And your second link is somewhat old. The Store links from it don't work. I think I'm just gonna use my iPad to view them.

ahmd said:

Ah, man. This is so annoying. I just logged in with my Hotmail account and it still shows $0.99. And your second link is somewhat old. The Store links from it don't work. I think I'm just gonna use my iPad to view them.

I don't understand why you are seeing a $0.99 price for HEIF, the link below shows as 'Free' for me. The HEVC Video Extensions are not free, but the '...from Device Mabufaturer' one is free, and identical in function.

To open HEIC in Windows Photo Viewer you need both these free Store extensions.

HEIF Image Extensions
HEVC Video Extensions from Device Manufacturer

With them installed anything, including Windows Photo Viewer or even MS Paint, can open HEIC.


EDIT: while the 'HEVC Video Extensions from Device Manufacturer' were freely available a month ago when I last posted about this, they are now 'currently unavailable'. Looks like you'll have to pay after all

Bree said:

I don't understand why you are seeing a $0.99 price for HEIF

The link you provided indeed shows alright, but then tells me that it's already installed:





But it does nothing in displaying those images in Windows Explorer when I double click them:

Ghot said:

There IS the possibility that the photos themselves are the problem. They may be corrupt in some way.
I've had similar issues with some gif files, that generate the same message, while 99% of them, work fine.

You know, I doubt that. Maybe they were shot with the latest iPhone and Apple has changed something in the encoding that Microsoft codec is not aware of. That may be the case.

The reason I know that the photos are alright is that I can open them in Chrome when I view them in Google Drive. That's where I downloaded them from.