[SNAP] Windows 10 Photos Problems

“Where Did (Photos) put my Photos?”

One common complaint I've heard from people who moved to Windows 10 is that they can't find their pictures in the brave new world. Your photo files have not moved, but the Photos app hides the “complexities” of folder names and trees by default. The app automatically catalogs every image file it finds in the C:\Users\\Pictures folder on your computer.

If you store photos in other folders, you will have to add those folders to the Pictures folder before the Photos app will catalog them. Open the Photos app, go to Settings and under the Sources section, click Add a folder. Find the folder you want to add, select it, and click Add this folder to Pictures. The new folder will appear as a Source, complete with its original path name.

Note that if you have a Microsoft OneDrive cloud storage account, Photos will probably catalog its image contents too. If you don’t want OneDrive images to appear in Photos, go to Settings and turn off that option.

“Can I get Win 7’s Photo Viewer back?”

This is the most common question I’ve received, by far. If you upgraded from Win 7 or 8.1 to Win 10, the familiar Photo Viewer is still there, hidden as an option. Here is how to make Photo Viewer your default app for viewing images instead of the Photos app:

Open File Explorer and navigate to the folder where your pictures are stored. Right-click on any image file. Move the pointer over “Open With.” Select “Choose Another App” from the dropdown menu. Click the “More apps” option. Select “Photo Viewer” from the list of apps. Click on the “Always use this app to open .___ files” checkbox to leave it checked. Then click OK.

All of those steps associate Photo Viewer with just one type of image file, i.e., JPG, GIF, etc. You will have to repeat those steps each time you encounter a file type that is opened by Photos instead of Photo Viewer. Most people will only have to do this once, for JPG photos. If you deal with GIF or TIFF files, you'll have to handle each one separately.

If you have a computer that came with Win 10 already installed, or if you did a “clean installation” on your existing computer, then you won’t see Photo Viewer anywhere. Microsoft really, really wants you to use Photos, so it omitted from Windows 10 the registry keys that point to the old Photo Viewer. But don’t despair; some kind geek made it pretty easy to fix that.

First, download the Activate Windows Photo Viewer on Windows 10.zip file. Click to open the downloaded ZIP file, and then double-click on the .REG file it contains. It will make the necessary modifications to your registry. You may see a few prompts asking you to confirm that you really want to apply the changes. That's OK. Now, Photo Viewer will appear in the list of “Other Apps” that you can choose to associate with an image file type. (You still must go through the steps above.)

“How do I get rid of the Photos app?

Some readers just want the Photos app off their hard drives, period. That’s not easy, but it is pretty straightforward. Open the Start menu, search for “PowerShell,” right-click on the PowerShell shortcut, and select “Run as administrator.” Agree to the prompt, if you get one. That will open the Powershell command line prompt, which is similar to the “cmd” prompt but more versatile. Copy and paste the line below into the Powershell prompt line. After it does its stuff, the Photos app is uninstalled from Windows 10. Close Powershell and you're done.

Get-AppxPackage *photos* | Remove-AppxPackage

“At startup, W10 asks me if I like/dislike a photo. How can I stop that annoyance?”

I think the cause of your annoyance is Windows Spotlight, not the Photos app. Spotlight is a “personalization” feature built into Win 10 that asks if you like or dislike a different photo every time you start Windows 10. Spotlight learns your favorite photos this way, and rotates them on the Lockscreen - the screen that you have to click your way through to get to the login screen where you enter your username and password.

To disable Spotlight, open “All Settings” from the taskbar. Navigate to “Personalization.” Choose “Lockscreen.” Under “Background,” choose anything but “Windows Spotlight.” The “Slideshow” option will display a different photo every time you start up, without asking your opinion of it. The “Picture” option will let you specify a single picture that will always be displayed when you start up.

Do you have other questions about handling photos on Windows 10? Post your comment or question below...