Can't set Photoshop CS6 as default app, silently changes to other apps

I just upgraded my work computer from Windows 7 to Windows 10 Home x64, build 1803. It was an in-place upgrade, not a fresh install (probably a mistake I know, but this is a production system so I had to minimize downtime & couldn't spend hours reconfiguring a fresh install). I've gotten everything working pretty much as it should, except for one INFURIATING thing: Windows is outright refusing to let me choose Photoshop CS6 as the default app to open image files. No matter how I try it, it simply will not let me.

When I go to Settings>Apps>Default Apps, Photoshop does not appear under the list of available programs for the image viewer. Photoshop also does not appear in the "Set defaults by app" screen, so I cannot select it that way.

If I go into "Choose default apps by file type", Photoshop DOES appear in the list of available programs for some of the image formats. Some...but not all. HOWEVER, if I try to select it as the default app for a specific type of image where it does appear in the list, it immediately changes back to the "Photos" app. It doesn't show any errors or warnings saying that it has been reset, it just...does it, suddenly and silently.

So, I used PowerShell to uninstall the Photos app under the assumption that getting rid of it will "reset" the defaults, tried selecting Photoshop as the default for the specific file types again...and this time it immediately and silently changed the default to "Windows Photo Viewer". ARGH!

Next, I right-clicked on an image file and selected Open With>Choose Another App. Photoshop DOES appear in this list, so I selected it and checked "Always use this app" and clicked OK. The image did open in Photoshop...once. After that, it still silently reset the default back to Windows Photo Viewer.

Now, Photoshop isn't the only image editor I have installed. I also got an old version of Jasc Paint Shop Pro installed, because we have a handful of .pspimage files that Photoshop cannot open. I tried selecting PSP as the default, and it worked perfectly fine. In fact, once I did that, now Photoshop suddenly appeared in the list of programs on the "Choose default apps" screen under the Photo viewer section. Progress? Nope! If I try then to select Photoshop as the default image viewer, it just immediately and silently goes right back to Paint Shop Pro. It does the same thing if I again try the Open With>Choose Another App route, it stays set to PSP.

Next, I went to a different computer running the same version of Photoshop on the same version of Windows, one on which Photoshop IS properly selected as the default app, and used DISM to export the default app settings to an XML file. I then copied that XML file onto the affected computer, and used DISM again to import those settings. The result...

...big fat nada. It immediately went back to silently setting Windows Photo Viewer as the default.

Like I said earlier, Windows is outright REFUSING to accept Photoshop as the default image viewer. We're starting to get into "bang head through wall" levels of frustration here.

Other things I have tried:
-Uninstalling & reinstalling Photoshop. Didn't work.
-Uninstalling Paint Shop Pro as a means of "forcing" it to use Photoshop, didn't work. It just switched the default back to Windows Photo Viewer (which cannot be uninstalled or disabled) even if I tried changing the default to Photoshop.
-Ran SFC, no errors found.
-Ran virus scan (Avira free antivirus), nothing found.
-Tried selecting the default while the antivirus was disabled, didn't work.

I did find another thread on these forums about someone having a similar problem, but in that case it turned out to be caused by the fact that they had two different versions of Photoshop installed simultaneously. That is not the case here...I have only Photoshop CS6 installed, and have never had any other version of Photoshop installed ever.

I'm to the point where, if I could figure out a way to bypass Windows file association security, I'd be tempted to just directly edit the registry myself. Obviously though, this is not possible since Windows 10 actively monitors the registry, and sets file associations back to default if it detects an unexpected change (which me manually editing the registry would qualify as).

So...does anyone know of any other ways I can change Photoshop to the default image viewer and have it STAY the default viewer? Registry edits I perhaps CAN do, or third-party utilities that'll work, anything? This has gotten so bothersome that I'm about ready to throw this computer in the river if I can't solve this.

Thank you for any assistance you can offer.

I'm in the same boat with a brand new (Oct 23) installation. I use Photoshop extensively and have no desire to move from a local copy to a subscription. I have successfully installed the program on a brand new PC with Windows 10 Pro. A (very) few file types will associate permanently with CS6 but not .jpg or even CR2 (but NEF files will). As noted above they will appear to associate and even open one file. Upon trying to open a second file from Explorer it just goes back to Photos. I've tried this as Administrator and no help.

The system is a new install and fully up to date. I have uninstalled & re-installed Photoshop. I did install only the Photoshop 64 bit version. At this point this is close to a deal-killer for using Windows 10 as a primary system. (Photoshop licenses CS6 for use on 2 PC's - I've still got it active on a Win7 box.)

So far I've tried every suggestion I can find short of using regedit and working on the registry itself.

Any suggestions would certainly be tried.

Have you tried to open an image file from the right-click context menu?
Select "Open with" and then "Choose another app".
Click the checkbox "Always use this app to open .XXX files" ... where XXX will be the file suffix of the file you chose.
If Photoshop appears in the list, choose it. If not scroll down and click the "More apps" arrow.
If Photoshop is still not in the list (it won't be!) then scroll down some more to "Look for another app on this PC" and click it.
Use the file dialog to navigate to Photoshop's installation folder and select "Photoshop.exe".
This will set Photoshop as the default for that file suffix.

Repeat this for image files having other suffixes.
I'd work on .psd, .jpg, .png, and .tif

Yes, this is tedious. And it's all because Microsoft has broken the older, simpler methods.

margrave55 said:

Have you tried to open an image file from the right-click context menu?
Select "Open with" and then "Choose another app".
Click the checkbox "Always use this app to open .XXX files" ... where XXX will be the file suffix of the file you chose.
If Photoshop appears in the list, choose it. If not scroll down and click the "More apps" arrow.
If Photoshop is still not in the list (it won't be!) then scroll down some more to "Look for another app on this PC" and click it.
Use the file dialog to navigate to Photoshop's installation folder and select "Photoshop.exe".
This will set Photoshop as the default for that file suffix.

Repeat this for image files having other suffixes.
I'd work on .psd, .jpg, .png, and .tif

Yes, this is tedious. And it's all because Microsoft has broken the older, simpler methods.

I did try this, and it would indeed open that one file in Photoshop, but ONLY that one file, and only that one time. Double-clicking a second time on the same image file, or any other image file even of the same format, would result in it being opened in the Photos app or whatever other non-Photoshop app had been previously selected as the default.

My problem ultimately got resolved by an unrelated reformat and reinstall of Windows after upgrading to an SSD, but for anyone else having the same problem, hopefully there's a fix that'll work without having to resort to reinstalling Windows.

I have a similar experience to margrave55 but on a totally new/clean system with SSD as the main drive. The check box process does not "stick" for any other files. From various posts this appears to be a pretty common problem so as said, hopefully it will be resolved soon.