| Windows Photo Viewer | |
|---|---|
 | |
 Windows Photo Viewer running onWindows 10 | |
| Developer | Microsoft |
| Operating system | Windows Picture and Fax Viewer:Windows Photo Viewer:
|
| Predecessor | Windows Picture and Fax Viewer: Imaging for Windows Windows Photo Viewer: Windows Photo Gallery |
| Successor | Windows Picture and Fax Viewer: Windows Photo Gallery Windows Photo Viewer: Microsoft Photos |
| License | Proprietary |
| Website | Windows Picture and Fax Viewer: Official website at theWayback Machine (archived 5 January 2008) Windows Photo Viewer: Official website at theWayback Machine (archived 2 December 2010) |
Windows Photo Viewer (formerlyWindows Picture and Fax Viewer)[1] is animage viewer included with theWindows NT family of operating systems. It was first included withWindows XP andWindows Server 2003 under its former name, succeedingImaging for Windows. It was removed inWindows Vista and was replaced withWindows Photo Gallery,[2] but was reinstated inWindows 7 under its current name.[3]
Windows Photo Viewer can show individual pictures, display all pictures in a folder as aslide show, reorient them in 90° increments, print them either directly or via an online print service, send them in e-mail orburn them to a disc.[3][4][5] Windows Photo Viewer supports images inBMP,JPEG,JPEG XR (formerly HD Photo),PNG,ICO,GIF andTIFF file formats.[6]
Windows Photo Viewer isdeprecated inWindows 10 and later in favor of aUniversal Windows Platform app calledPhotos. The program can no longer be accessed by normal means, however it can be re-enabled by editing the registry.[7][8]
Windows Picture and Fax Viewer allows images to be displayed without opening them up in an image editor. It usesGDI+ and can display a variety of image file formats, includinganimated GIFs, as well as displaying slide shows of images. Images can be zoomed in and out without any additional modifications to the image file, and can be rotated with changes saved directly to the file when closing the image viewer.[1] Windows Picture and Fax Viewer can also annotate TIFF files,[9][10] and can even view and edit multi-page TIFF files, however TIFF files with JPEG compression is not fully supported.[11]
Unlike with Imaging for Windows, Windows Picture and Fax Viewer does not include the advanced features of said application.
Compared to Windows Picture and Fax Viewer, changes have been made to the graphical user interface in Windows Photo Viewer. Whereas Windows Picture and Fax Viewer uses GDI+,[12] Windows Photo Viewer usesWindows Imaging Component (WIC)[13] and takes advantage ofWindows Display Driver Model.[14]
Although GIF files are supported in Windows Photo Viewer, Windows Photo Viewer only displays the first frame of the animated GIF[15] whereas Windows Picture and Fax Viewer displays animated GIFs in full. Windows Picture and Fax Viewer was also capable of viewing multi-page TIFF files (except those that employ JPEG compression) as well as annotating the TIFF files,[9][10][11] whereas Windows Photo Viewer cannot, though it does handle multi-pageWEBP files. On the other hand, Windows Photo Viewer has added support forJPEG XR[6] andICC Profiles (Windows Picture and Fax Viewer also has support for ICC Profiles but only for v2[16]).
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Some devices and Android phones are able to take photos and screenshots and have a custom ICC Profile being applied to said pictures, however Windows Photo Viewer will display an error when trying to display the picture with the message "Windows Photo Viewer can't display this picture because there might not be enough memory available on your computer" when an unknown ICC Profile is detected. There is a patch available on GitHub that fixes this behavior.[17] Also, when a custom Display ICC Profile is applied after installing a Monitor driver, Windows Photo Viewer wrongly shifts the picture hue to a warm tint. This feature is intentional but is greatly exaggerated. This can be fixed by removing or replacing the Display ICC Profile.[18][19][20]
In support documentation, Microsoft states that Windows Photo Viewer is not part of Windows 10, and a user still has it only if they upgraded from Windows 7 or 8.1.[21] However, it can be brought back in Windows 10 and later with registry editing, by adding the appropriate entries ("capabilities") in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows Photo Viewer\Capabilities\FileAssociations. It is also possible to restore the Preview option in the context menu.[7][8]
Windows Photo Viewer itself remains built-in into Windows as of 2025[update]; up untilWindows 11 version 25H2, Windows Photo Viewer was still set by default forTIFF files with the extensions ".tif" and ".tiff".[7][8][22]
Q: I have noticed that in Windows 7, the Windows Picture viewer only displays the first frame of an animated GIF. Why is this? [~snip~]A: Hi, this is by design.
