Windows 10 Desktop Issue: I am trying to place a desktop pic on my Windows 10 laptop. Since the computer was born with Windows 10, Windows Photo Viewer doesn't exist. My issue is that...

tvbob

I am trying to place a desktop pic on my Windows 10 laptop. Since the computer was born with Windows 10, Windows Photo Viewer doesn't exist.
My issue is that the picture that I selected for the desktop image is extremely blown up and only showing about 1/3 of the whole pic.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Bob

Max Bottomtime Loc: Torrance, California

Windows Photo Viewer is still there, it's just hidden.
https://www.howtogeek.com/225844/how-to-make-windows-photo-viewer-your-default-image-viewer-on-windows-10/

MDI Mainer

Go to settings; personalization, then background. Select "picture" from the "background" pull down menu, browse to select your picture, then pull down the "choose a fit" menu. One of the options there should work, no matter what the image size. Mine works best on "fill."

MDI Mainer

Go to settings; personalization, then background. Select "picture" from the "background" pull down menu, browse to select your picture, then pull down the "choose a fit" menu. One of the options there should work, no matter what the image size. Mine works best on "fill."

Sorry about the duplication!

stu352 Loc: MA/RI Border

Go into any of the photo editing programs and make a smaller version of the photo. On my Win 10 machine with a big screen, I make images about 1200 pixels wide, that I then center on the screen. This leaves plenty of room for icons that don't cover up my artwork.

Find out how many pixels wide your screen is, and go from there.

nadelewitz Loc: Ithaca NY

Short Windows Photo Viewer was replaced by Photos. Look down the Start Menu list.

Max Bottomtime Loc: Torrance, California

The Windows 10 Photos really sucked, so I followed the directions in the link I posted above. It only takes a couple of minutes to get Windows Photo Viewer back.

MDI Mainer

Max Bottomtime wrote:

The Windows 10 Photos really sucked, so I followed the directions in the link I posted above. It only takes a couple of minutes to get Windows Photo Viewer back.

Apparently, if you have a clean install on an older computer, or a computer that came with Windows 10 as its original OS, you need to do a registry edit to reactivate Photo Viewer. That's probably too risky an operation for many, just to change photo programs.

But I agree this is another example of where the old program was more intuitive and better than its replacement.

nadelewitz Loc: Ithaca NY

Max Bottomtime wrote:

The Windows 10 Photos really sucked, so I followed the directions in the link I posted above. It only takes a couple of minutes to get Windows Photo Viewer back.

The OP said his computer was born with Win10, meaning it was a clean install of Win10 by the manufacturer. So, according to the article you provided, the registry keys for Windows Photo Viewer don't exist on it. It's not there at all to be "activated". Has to be a Win 10 system which was upgraded in place from 7 or 8.

Max Bottomtime Loc: Torrance, California

I have a laptop that came with Windows 10, as does my wife. I followed the directions on the link and we each have Windows Photo Viewer now.
From the link;
If you upgrade a PC running Windows 7 or 8.1 to Windows 10, Windows Photo Viewer will be available and you can set it as your default photo viewer if you want. However, if you perform a clean installation of Windows 10—or buy a PC with Windows 10 already on it—you can’t access Photo Viewer at all. The interesting thing is that Photo Viewer is still there. It’s just hidden and you’ll have to make a couple of Registry edits to have it show up. After you do that, you can then set it as your default photo viewer.

nadelewitz Loc: Ithaca NY

Max Bottomtime wrote:

I have a laptop that came with Windows 10, as does... (show quote)

Came from WHERE? The manufacturer, or someone who had Win7/8 and did the 10 upgrade in place?
It would be rather odd for a computer maker to ship computers with 7 or 8 upgraded in place to 10, as opposed to clean installs of Windows 10. I sure wouldn't want a brand new computer
that did not have a fresh, clean install of its operating system.

Max Bottomtime Loc: Torrance, California

They were both brand new computers with Windows 10. They never had Windows 7 or 8. Windows Photo Viewer is still in Windows 10, it's just hidden. You have to do a registry edit to reactivate Photo Viewer. It only takes a couple of minutes and then you will have Windows Photo Viewer back just as if you had Windows 7 or 8.

nadelewitz Loc: Ithaca NY

Max Bottomtime wrote:

They were both brand new computers with Windows 10. They never had Windows 7 or 8. Windows Photo Viewer is still in Windows 10, it's just hidden. You have to do a registry edit to reactivate Photo Viewer. It only takes a couple of minutes and then you will have Windows Photo Viewer back just as if you had Windows 7 or 8.

Well then either the article you linked is not correct, or the computer maker did not provide a clean install image of Windows 10.

Max Bottomtime Loc: Torrance, California

The article is correct, and the computers came with a brand new install of Windows 10. You can't access the photo viewer until you make the registry edit. It's very easy to do.
From the link;
If you upgrade a PC running Windows 7 or 8.1 to Windows 10, Windows Photo Viewer will be available and you can set it as your default photo viewer if you want. However, if you perform a clean installation of Windows 10—or buy a PC with Windows 10 already on it—you can’t access Photo Viewer at all. The interesting thing is that Photo Viewer is still there. It’s just hidden and you’ll have to make a couple of Registry edits to have it show up. After you do that, you can then set it as your default photo viewer.

blackest Loc: Ireland

nadelewitz wrote:

Well then either the article you linked is not correct, or the computer maker did not provide a clean install image of Windows 10.

It's there all right it is a dll file so not straight forward to activate but add the registry entries and its there.