Restore Windows Photo Viewer in Windows 10  

Hello @Brink ,

This is just for information really and maybe a note in the Tutorial.

During post installation customisation I removed the Microsoft.Windows.Photos AppxPackage and ProvisionedAppxPackage.

I then used the Restore_Windows_Photo_Viewer_ALL_USERS_with_Sort_Order_Fix.reg file. It worked great except that the Thumbnails Preview did NOT show in File Explorer.

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I then ran the Turn_On_thumbnail_Previews_in_Explorer.bat file from here - Option 3 . . .

> Enable or Disable Thumbnail Previews in File Explorer in Windows 10

. . . and again, it did NOT show the Thumbnails Preview in File Explorer.

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However, when I ran Enable_Thumbnails_for_All_Users.reg file from here - Option 5 [ Same Tutorial as above ] . . .

> Enable or Disable Thumbnail Previews in File Explorer in Windows 10

. . . it DID show the Thumbnails Preview in File Explorer.

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So basically what I am saying is that in my case, I needed to run BOTH the above files in order to be able to view the Thumbnails Preview in File Explorer.

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I just thought I would share this in case others come across the same sceanrio.

Hello @Paul Black,

It sounds like you had disable the thumbnail previews feature somehow which of course would override the turn on/off option.

Brink said:

Hello @Paul Black,

It sounds like you had disable the thumbnail previews feature somehow which of course would override the turn on/off option.

Thanks @Brink, you are 100% correct as usual.

So in normal circumstances then, they are Enabled by Default, and I would ONLY need to Turn On, or would I still need to run BOTH files?

Paul Black said:

Thanks @Brink, you are 100% correct as usual.

So in normal circumstances then, they are Enabled by Default, and I would ONLY need to Turn On, or would I still need to run BOTH files?

Correct. Enabled and turned on by default. Normally, would only need to turn on/off as wanted.

Brink said:

Correct. Enabled and turned on by default. Normally, would only need to turn on/off as wanted.

Thank you for the clarification.

CCPS IT said:

Hello all,

Sorry if this has already been answered.

We have been using this fix for awhile on our LTSC 2019 deployment image. It was working 100% up until recently. Now we find that once a user reboots their machine, the default app setting pointing to Photo Viewer resets. The app of Photo Viewer is still available but the machine no longer uses it by default. We have tried resetting all app defaults, associating file types, and using the app association options to no avail. Has anyone else experienced this or have a possible solution to fix this?

TYIA

Hello, and welcome to Ten Forums.

I just tested restarting the computer after using step 2 in option 2, and Windows Photo Viewer remained the default app set in Settings > Apps > Default Apps > "Photo viewer" for me.

RNR1995 said:

Just an FYI
sort order fix is not working?
thought maybe it was just LTSC but 20H2 also
Does not sort to folder view
Another issue for another week
RNR

Hello RNR,

I just tested it with the sort order fix by opening an image in a folder, and they cycled in Windows Photo Viewer in the same order in the folder for me.

If you change the order in the folder, you'll have to close and reopen Windows Photo Viewer to see the new order though.

Where is this folder located at? How do you have the folder arranged by "Sort by", "Group by", etc...? I'll test using the same.