How do I get Photo Viewer to come up on clean install of Windows 10?

Good Day.

I installed Windows 10 Professional x64 on a clean drive, added the software and updates and I can't get Photo Viewer to be set as the default Photo Software. I verified photoviewer.dll present in both 32 and 64 bit Program Files Folders. I ran the registry merge to Activate Windows Photo Viewer and checked the Registry and the updates were merged into the Registry, but the option to choose Windows Photo Viewer as a default will not come up.

In the Registry, I find -3043, -3009, -3058, -3069 attached at various places therein. In the code to merge into the Registry, only -3043 is shown??? Any significance - does anybody know??

Can anyone help? Thanks in advance. Stu

There's a Tutorial here about it [courtesy of @Brink]:
Restore Windows Photo Viewer in Windows 10 | Tutorials

Have you tried right-clicking a .jpg file and search the list to find Windows Photo Viewer? Mine don't come in as an icon on the Start menu but Open With always works. There's a place on the list of programs available to put a checkmark to always use that program.

theaudioanalyst said:

I already ran a Registry fix?? This is another registry fix. Wont this mess up the registry really good?

Berton said:

Have you tried right-clicking a .jpg file and search the list to find Windows Photo Viewer? ....

theaudioanalyst said:

A right click doesn't show it as an option nor does using settings to select it to be the default

First, when you right-click you need to choose the 'Open with' option before you can see Photo Viewer listed. To set it as default you need to use 'Open with > Choose another app'. As a point of interest, in a clean install the Windows Photo Viewer is already registered and is an available option for one (and only one) image type, a .tif image file.

In the Registry, I find -3043, -3009, -3058, -3069 attached at various places therein. In the code to merge into the Registry, only -3043 is shown??? Any significance - does anybody know??

I have no idea what's in your so-called 'fix' but it bears no relation to the TenForums fix. Merging the .reg from the tutorial should not cause a 'mess', in fact it is more likely that you have already caused a mess with that one you tried. You did not say where you got that .reg from (probably best not to, judging by the results) but the proven one from the TenForums tutorial uses no numbers of any sort.

As I said, in a clean install the Photo Viewer is already registered and working. What the tutorial does, for every file type the Photo Viewer can open, is to add the Windows Photo Viewer to the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Classes\ key and add it to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\.<filetype>\OpenWithProgids. That last one is the list you see in 'Open with'.

This is the 'before and after' effect of merging the TenForums tutorial .reg file on a clean install of W10 Pro version 1809.