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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Comments

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

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.”

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.

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!

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.

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?