Windows 8 Hacks

Chapter 6. Music, Media, and Video

Windows 8 was built for a media-centric world, where digital video, music, and photos are part of daily life. For the most part, the media apps built into Windows 8 are simple and easy to use. But that doesn’t mean Windows 8 isn’t hackable when it comes to media. In this chapter, you’ll find plenty of ways to hack away at it.

Hack #55. Open Graphic Files In Photo Viewer Instead of the Windows 8 Native Photos App

Prefer the old favorite Desktop app Windows Photo Viewer over the Windows 8 native Photos app? Here’s how to make sure your pictures and graphics open to the Desktop app, not the Windows 8 one.

Windows 8 native apps are not to everyone’s liking, and for good reason. As a general rule they’re pretty to look at, but not always so pretty to use, because they offer only the most basic capabilities.

That’s certainly the case with the Windows 8 Photos app. Essentially, it lets you look at photos stored on your computer, and that’s about it. A much better bet is to use the older, but much more useful, Desktop-based Photo Viewer, which has many more features than the Windows 8 native Photos app.

But there’s a problem: if you double-click a photo or graphics file using File Explorer, Windows 8 opens it in the Photos app rather than Photo Viewer. Luckily, there’s a simple way to solve the problem. You can tell File Explorer to open the Photo Viewer rather than the Photos app.

Launch Control Panel by typing Control Panel at the Start screen, highlighting ...