Photos Will not Open file using double click

[JWR]

Photos stored on the PC , in any format but specifically in .jpeg most common format, refuse to open using the mouse double click. The image thumbnail is there for a wide variety of jpeg files in many different folders but when you double click on them nothing happens. It does NOT open. You right click on the thumbnail and click on Open in the list of actions and nothing happens. Does not open. ... YET if you select "Open with" and choose Photos (the name of the MS Photos software) then the file opens full screen as they always have for decades. Another family PC sitting 10 feet away with the same software routinely opens any jpeg image using a double click. The default program for opening a jpeg file is set to 'Photos' identically in both machines.

'Photos' was downloaded and reinstalled on the non-working machine. No change. Exactly the same. Cannot open image files with the program using a double click.

What is going on here!!??

 

[Bastet]

That sounds like there’s no program set as default for opening photos. When you right click & choose open with there should be a tick box for ‘always use this program‘.

 

[Grizzly]

I agree with Bastet. Although I never use photos (it always screws up my pictures), I rather go with Irfanview. A lot better program, free and much more flexible

 

[JWR]

Nope. "Photos" software is set as the default. I've made sure of that and redid it several times. Also reloaded the program. No change. Something else is wrong. Other files (like Word, etc. ) open routinely with a double click on the file name in any folder.

 

[RasulGreen]

Due to the failure of the reinstall, the cause of the failure must be app data corruption or a runtime component. Therefore, navigate to Settings > Apps > Installed apps, locate the ‘Microsoft Photos’ app, and access Advanced Options to run ‘Repair and Reset’ to flush the app’s cache. Having done that and the app still fails to launch, the next process should be to install the latest version of the Windows App SDK (x64), which can be downloaded from Microsoft’s official website, since it has been documented to be capable of solving the Photos app’s inability to open using system call invocations. With the app’s failure to open, do not bother running the commonly applied ‘SFC’ command to scan the system.

 

[JWR]

Due to the failure of the reinstall, the cause of the failure must be app data corruption or a runtime component. Therefore, navigate to Settings > Apps > Installed apps, locate the ‘Microsoft Photos’ app, and access Advanced Options to run ‘Repair and Reset’ to flush the app’s cache. Having done that and the app still fails to launch, the next process should be to install the latest version of the Windows App SDK (x64), which can be downloaded from Microsoft’s official website, since it has been documented to be capable of solving the Photos app’s inability to open using system call invocations. With the app’s failure to open, do not bother running the commonly applied ‘SFC’ command to scan the system.

With the shrouded mystery of what Win 11 is doing at all times, I am fairly sure what you suggested worked. I did the Repair and Reset on 'Photos' and there was no indication that it worked at all ...for a long time. I guessed that the Repair & Reset might not have worked until one restarts the machine... I did that and when it came back up it was so slow it acted as if some unknown monster was sucking up 95% of the capacity. This went on for ~ half hour or so and FINALLY at glacial speed the PC came back to enough responsiveness to let you know it was alive. After a long time it recovered and NOW the original problem is gone. It offered me the list of apps to open jpeg files (in spite of the fact 'Photos' had been listed for weeks and still was/is as the default. ) The NEW thing was, now, it asks "Always?" and I leaped on that. Now jpeg files open readily with a double click exactly as they had for decades and thru 4 or 5 different releases of Windows. In my view MS needs to pour the room full of epoxy, get rid of 70% of the programmers and STOP doing so many dern updates. We'd all be better off.