How to change default picture viewer in Windows

Posted on September 12, 2008 at 5:39 am

By default, when I double-click on a picture in Windows, it is opened with Microsoft Picture and Fax Viewer! That’s nice, but I would rather it open with a different photo viewing program, such as Photoshop, GIMP, etc.

If this problem annoys you also, there is a simple way to change the default photo display program in Windows to the application of your choice! Actually, there are two ways to go about it.

Step 1: Open the Control Panel and click on Switch to Classic View at the top left. Then click on the Folder Options icon.

control panel folder options[5]

Step 2: Click on the File Types tab and scroll down to the file extension that you want to change the default program for. For example, if you want to change the default program for viewing photos and pictures, you are going to want to find the JPG, JPEG, GIF, PNG, and BMP extensions and click on each one of them.

change file type

Once you highlight an extension, click on the Change button to choose a different default program. As you can see from above, my default program for opening pictures is Windows Picture and Fax Viewer, but I can choose any program from the list or browse if it’s not in the list.

open with file type

The second way to change your default photo viewing program is to simply right-click on a photo and choose Open With and then select Choose Program.

open with choose program

Select the program from the list and then check the box that says “Always use the selected program to open this kind of file”.

change file assosciation

That’s it! Now instead of having some annoying default program like Windows Picture and Fax Viewer or JASC Paint program open your photos, you can choose your favorite photo editing program. Enjoy!

If you don’t like Windows default settings, you may be interested in reading my posts on how to change the default location for installing programs in Windows and how to increase the default thumbnail size for pictures in Windows Explorer.

» Filed Under Windows XP

Related Posts

Comments

16 Responses to “How to change default picture viewer in Windows”

  1. Bill said on : September 12th, 2008 at 11:51 am

    I have used FolderOptions from time immemorial, but IMO FileTypesMan is a fine alternative. (And the download is a whopping 65k!)

    http://www.nirsoft.net

    From the website:
    “FileTypesMan is an alternative to the ‘File Types’ tab in the ‘Folder Options’ of Windows. It displays the list of all file extensions and types registered on your computer. For each file type, the following information is displayed: Type Name, Description, MIME Type, Perceived Type, Flags, Browser Flags, and more.
    FileTypesMan also allows you to easily edit the properties and flags of each file type, as well as it allows you to add, edit, and remove actions in a file type.”


  2. Hunter McMillian said on : February 3rd, 2009 at 7:51 am

    This was VERY helpful thanks! I was tired of having to “select a program from the list” from default so I appreciate this very much. :)


  3. Lindsay Buchan said on : February 10th, 2009 at 8:10 am

    Sadly this didn’t work for me, I’ve done everything you said, if I right click on a picture and select properties it says “opens with microsoft photo editor” but if I double click on the picture it still opens in Windows Picture and Fax Viewer. This has just started happenign in the last week or two and nothing i do will make it go back to the way it was!


  4. Tom Armstrong said on : April 10th, 2009 at 11:02 am

    Not quite right – This works to change the default application when you want to OPEN the file but it doesn’t change the default application used to PREVIEW the file. When you double click or right click and choose OPEN, it OPEN’s the file just as you say.

    HOWEVER – if you right click and select PREVIEW, you haven’t changed the application it uses. I want to know how to change this for two reasons:
    1. I’d like to preview multiple files in a directory. If I start with a JPG file, the photoviewer is handy to look at all the files in that directory – right now, if I right click on a BMP file, it will open Photoshop and that takes a minute or two to get out of.
    2. The icon apparently is not the same as the default application that OPENs it. Apparently it’s the application that PREVIEWs it, or it’s separate altogether.


  5. Tom Armstrong said on : April 10th, 2009 at 11:14 am

    ok ok ok – I got that wrong – OPEN and PREVIEW are both controlled as you have described above. It’s “edit” on the right mouse click menu that I wanted to be different. I want to be able to change the default for. Right now, when I choose OPEN or PREVIEW, my bmp and jpg files use Windows Picture and FAX viewer. That’s what I want. When I right click and choose EDIT, the files open in PAINT. I want to change it so that EDIT will open the files in Photoshop but OPEN and PREVIEW will still open the files in Windows Picture and FAX viewer. – Anybody know how to change the default EDIT application?


  6. Karen Tobey said on : June 13th, 2009 at 9:27 pm

    OK, I have a picture and the extension on it is .fmp. Well the website does not allow them. So how do I change the extension to either .bmp or .jpg?


  7. Tom Armstrong said on : November 23rd, 2009 at 7:38 am

    Hi Karen – First, go the folder where the picture with the .fmp file is located. Then, under “Tools” menu, select Folder Options”. Select the “View” tabs; scroll down to “hide extensions for known file types” and make sure it is NOT checked. Click “Ok”.
    Now, back in the folder, click on the file – ONCE (don’t double click to open it) – and it allows you to rename the file. Make sure you give it a “.jpg” file name. It should ask you “are you sure”, just say Ok.
    btw, I don’t know what a fmp file is. If it’s not in jpeg or bitmap format, then changing the extension still won’t help you. You’d have to find out what app is making the file and see if there’s a way to change it from there.
    One last trick – if you ever see something on the screen and wish you could save it to a file, you can always do a screen capture, paste it into Paint and save it in any format you want!


  8. Graham said on : December 2nd, 2009 at 10:49 pm

    Re: #7

    Tom, I use screen captures all the time. I would recommend to anyone to replace Paint with Paint.net. It’s free, get it here: http://www.getpaint.net/download.html. It’s much more powerful than Paint. And since we are talking about image editors (kinda) I thought I would bring it up. Someone who can’t afford to pony up for Photoshop, or need the full advanced capabilities and much more difficult to use “Gimp”, Paint.net fills the gap perfectly for me. I have Windows 7, and the “new” paint is a huge improvement, but still not better than Paint.net IMO.

    Also, if it’s a website or a document I want to capture I use a .pdf printer (Cute PDF Writer). That way, I can have a nice looking document to save, and extract portions of text out later if need be. Of course, if it’s the graphics and not text you’re wanting then a screen-shot is much easier.

    I found this thread because I’m looking to change the way the mouse behaves in MS Photo Viewer. The defaults are useless if you just want to use the mouse and not touch the KB (regular mode and slide-show). Does anyone know where those settings are, or is it hard-coded into the .exe? I was thinking a manifest file may exist, or maybe in the registry?


  9. Tom Armstrong said on : December 3rd, 2009 at 7:55 am

    Thanks Graham – I tend to be a minimalist on my PC lately because it’s getting old (3 yr old laptop). Incidentally, I DO have Photoshop in addition to Paint. It’s just easier to pop into paint for a quick edit. I tend to grab maps from Google when I’m going somewhere, then pop into paint to write notes right on the map. It’s also easy to “uncolor” the map so I don’t have to waste ink. At any rate, I don’t need yet another graphics program on my PC right now but thanks for the tip, maybe when I get my next laptop which… I should start thinking of getting soon.


  10. buia adriana said on : December 22nd, 2009 at 7:32 am

    I cannot believe that it was so simple. it was very annoying for me because I could not open bitmap images anymore. thanks! :D


  11. catalina said on : December 23rd, 2009 at 12:32 am

    YOU ARE AWESOME!!!! THANKS FOR ALL THE HELP!


  12. Tom Armstrong said on : January 8th, 2010 at 6:20 am

    Grayham – Just a note to anyone looking to use paint.net, their website says you should have Windows 7 to use it :-(


  13. Graham said on : January 8th, 2010 at 7:58 am

    Tom,

    According to:
    http://www.getpaint.net/download.html

    That’s not true. Win7 is recommended, but it will run on XP and Vista. I know it will run (and well) because I’ve used it before Win7 came out (on both OS’s).

    System Requirements

    Minimum System

    * Windows 7 (recommended),
    or Windows XP SP2,
    or Windows Vista
    * 800MHz processor (dual-core recommended)
    * 512MB of RAM
    * 1024 x 768 screen resolution
    * 200+ MB hard drive space
    * Optional: 64-bit mode requires a 64-bit CPU and a 64-bit edition of Windows


  14. Raja said on : January 22nd, 2010 at 11:29 am

    thanks for clearing my doubt abt this. I knew there had to be a way to change the default picture viewer.


  15. Daphni said on : February 14th, 2010 at 12:36 am

    Thanks so much. Have been going nuts trying to get out of Photoshop opening my pictures. first suggestion worked for me. again.


  16. Phuni said on : March 10th, 2010 at 9:26 pm

    Is there a way to do this via the registry? I need to change the default picture viewer on a couple of hundred PCs and don’t have the time to do this. I need to know the key in the registry. Thanks in advance.


Please post your comments/suggestions!