Windows 10 has a new photo viewer and editor called Photos app that helps you organize all the images you have on your computer. However, many people claimed that the Photos app is not working properly. Some of the people have said that the Photos app is not opening at all when some of the people have claimed that the Photos app is too slow to open and work. In either case, you can follow the following solutions those can fix your problem. It doesn’t matter whether the Photos app is opening or not; you can check out these precious solutions. In the end, you can also find a method to enable Windows Photo Viewer so that you can get a substitute and use that if the inbuilt Photos app fails to work.

Windows Photos App Not Working on Windows 10

Different solutions have worked smoothly on different computes. Therefore, you need to try them one by one so that you can find out the working solution or you.

1] Terminate app and process

When the Photos app is not working or opening slowly, you should terminate the app and all the background processes. You know almost all the programs have some background processes that can cause such a problem. In Window 10, this is very easy to terminate all the running background processes with the help of Windows Settings, which is a Control Panel alternative for Windows 10. For that, open Windows 10 and go to Apps > Apps & features. Therefore, find out Microsoft Photos on your right-hand side and open Advanced Options. After that, you will get an option called Terminate that you can use to close all background processes.

2] Reset Photos app

When your Photos app is not working properly or working slowly, you can reset the Photos app. It will delete all personal data, but you can eventually fix the issue with the help of this option. There are two options called Repair and Reset. The Repair option will not remove your data, but the Reset option might do that. The best thing is you do not need to download any third-party software for that since the Windows 10 Settings can do the job for you. For that, open Windows 10 and go to Apps > Apps & features. Therefore, find out Microsoft Photos on your right-hand side and open Advanced Options. After that, you can find Repair and Reset options. Click on the accordingly to get things done.

3] Re-install Photos app

If the aforementioned solutions are not working on your computer, you can re-install the Photos app. The good news is you do not have to download any other software from the internet since Windows PowerShell can do that thing for you. To get started, open Windows PowerShell with administrator privilege. For that, search for Windows PowerShell in the Cortana search box and right-click on the corresponding result and select the Run as administrator. Therefore, enter this command:

Get-AppxPackage –AllUsers

After that, find out the Microsoft.Windows.Photos and the corresponding package name. Now enter a command like this:

remove-AppxPackage PackageFullName

Do not forget to replace the PackageFullName with the actual package name that you have copied earlier.

After doing that, you can open Microsoft Store and download the Photos app.

4] Repair Registry files

Sometimes when you install any software and it doesn’t work well with Registry Editor, you might face different problem. Therefore, this is very important to repair the registry files if anything has got corrupted. Luckily, there is a command line tool that can help you repair registry files with ease. For that, open Command Prompt with administrator privilege and enter this command:

sfc /scannow

It will take some time. Meanwhile, do not close the tab or turn off your computer. you might have to restart your computer as well. After the restart, do check whether the Photos app is working or not.

5] Use Troubleshooter

In Windows 10, you can find some inbuilt troubleshooters so that you can fix common problem like this. In the latest version of Windows 10, you can find the troubleshooters in this area:

Windows Settings > Update & Security > Troubleshoot

Therefore, find out the Windows Store Apps on your right-hand side. Click on it and select the Run the troubleshooter button respectively.

After that, you need to follow the screen option to run it accordingly. After finishing, you should be able to run the Photos app as usual.

6] Update Windows

Updating Windows machine is very important. Sometimes, your computer hardware might not be compatible with all the apps Windows 10 has. As hardware and software are internally linked, you should update your operating system so that you can fix the issue. Sometimes, Microsoft release patch very soon and you need to capture it accordingly. Otherwise, you will keep facing this issue.

How to enable Windows Photo Viewer in Windows 10?

Windows Photo Viewer was the inbuilt and default image opening in Windows 8.1 or older version. However, Microsoft replaced it with Photos, which is much more effective than the previous tool. Therefore, if you want to get it back, here is what you need to do.

Open Notepad and paste the following code.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Applications\photoviewer.dll]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Applications\photoviewer.dll\shell]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Applications\photoviewer.dll\shell\open]
"MuiVerb"="@photoviewer.dll,-3043"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Applications\photoviewer.dll\shell\open\command]
@=hex(2):25,00,53,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,52,00,6f,00,6f,00,74,00,25,\
00,5c,00,53,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,33,00,32,00,5c,00,72,00,75,00,\
6e,00,64,00,6c,00,6c,00,33,00,32,00,2e,00,65,00,78,00,65,00,20,00,22,00,25,\
00,50,00,72,00,6f,00,67,00,72,00,61,00,6d,00,46,00,69,00,6c,00,65,00,73,00,\
25,00,5c,00,57,00,69,00,6e,00,64,00,6f,00,77,00,73,00,20,00,50,00,68,00,6f,\
00,74,00,6f,00,20,00,56,00,69,00,65,00,77,00,65,00,72,00,5c,00,50,00,68,00,\
6f,00,74,00,6f,00,56,00,69,00,65,00,77,00,65,00,72,00,2e,00,64,00,6c,00,6c,\
00,22,00,2c,00,20,00,49,00,6d,00,61,00,67,00,65,00,56,00,69,00,65,00,77,00,\
5f,00,46,00,75,00,6c,00,6c,00,73,00,63,00,72,00,65,00,65,00,6e,00,20,00,25,\
00,31,00,00,00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Applications\photoviewer.dll\shell\open\DropTarget]
"Clsid"="{FFE2A43C-56B9-4bf5-9A79-CC6D4285608A}"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Applications\photoviewer.dll\shell\print]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Applications\photoviewer.dll\shell\print\command]
@=hex(2):25,00,53,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,52,00,6f,00,6f,00,74,00,25,\
00,5c,00,53,00,79,00,73,00,74,00,65,00,6d,00,33,00,32,00,5c,00,72,00,75,00,\
6e,00,64,00,6c,00,6c,00,33,00,32,00,2e,00,65,00,78,00,65,00,20,00,22,00,25,\
00,50,00,72,00,6f,00,67,00,72,00,61,00,6d,00,46,00,69,00,6c,00,65,00,73,00,\
25,00,5c,00,57,00,69,00,6e,00,64,00,6f,00,77,00,73,00,20,00,50,00,68,00,6f,\
00,74,00,6f,00,20,00,56,00,69,00,65,00,77,00,65,00,72,00,5c,00,50,00,68,00,\
6f,00,74,00,6f,00,56,00,69,00,65,00,77,00,65,00,72,00,2e,00,64,00,6c,00,6c,\
00,22,00,2c,00,20,00,49,00,6d,00,61,00,67,00,65,00,56,00,69,00,65,00,77,00,\
5f,00,46,00,75,00,6c,00,6c,00,73,00,63,00,72,00,65,00,65,00,6e,00,20,00,25,\
00,31,00,00,00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Applications\photoviewer.dll\shell\print\DropTarget]
"Clsid"="{60fd46de-f830-4894-a628-6fa81bc0190d}"

Therefore, you need to save it with .reg extension. After that, double-click on that file to run it with Registry Editor. Therefore, you will get Windows Photo Viewer. This is also possible to set it as default image opener in Windows 10.