Photos app not working (Windows 10) - alternatives for younger children?

[misterharrison]

Hi all

 

We are having a nightmare in our Primary Computing lab with the Windows 10 Photos app not working on half the computers - seems to be user-dependent too, with it working for some users and not for others. Our technicians (who are normally very competent) assure me that they cannot find a solution. We liked the Photos app for it's simple interface and basic photo-editing features.

 

Can anyone recommend another app that will open photos and allow basic editing (e.g. cropping, filters etc.)? We have paint.net but it's way too complicated for Y1 and Y2 children to use - we'd like to avoid anything with a layer system, and we don't want to use an online app like Pixlr (although the features and interface of Pixlr are at about the right level). It needs to be something that will open when you double-click a JPEG/PNG etc. We've had XnView and ACDsee recommended but they don't seem quite simple enough.

 

Anyone else had problems with the Photos app?

Anyone have a good alternative for use with younger children?

 

Thanks

[timbo343]

Have you tried the good old windows photo viewer for just general viewing of photos https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/14312-restore-windows-photo-viewer-windows-10-a.html otherwise what about fast stone image viewer https://www.faststone.org/FSViewerDetail.htm.

[misterharrison]

Thanks, yes, I think we'll go for good old Windows Photo Viewer for the time being - at least they'll be able to open photos to look at them. Then I can point them towards Pixlr or something if they want to edit them.

[ChrisC]

Hi all

 

We are having a nightmare in our Primary Computing lab with the Windows 10 Photos app not working on half the computers - seems to be user-dependent too, with it working for some users and not for others. Our technicians (who are normally very competent) assure me that they cannot find a solution. We liked the Photos app for it's simple interface and basic photo-editing features.

 

Can anyone recommend another app that will open photos and allow basic editing (e.g. cropping, filters etc.)? We have paint.net but it's way too complicated for Y1 and Y2 children to use - we'd like to avoid anything with a layer system, and we don't want to use an online app like Pixlr (although the features and interface of Pixlr are at about the right level). It needs to be something that will open when you double-click a JPEG/PNG etc. We've had XnView and ACDsee recommended but they don't seem quite simple enough.

 

Anyone else had problems with the Photos app?

Anyone have a good alternative for use with younger children?

 

Thanks

Is it that the photos app just doesn't load and sometimes flashes a little white bar under the start menu item and do these users use roaming profiles set to delete at logoff or similar?

 

If that's anything like you're experiencing, check the following Group Policy setting:

 

Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > App Package Deployment > Allow deployment operations in special profiles

 

Try enabling it if it's not.

[free780]

Also check to see if its making requests to MS domains. It may be 407ing against the proxy.

[Frenchsax]

We are getting the same issue here with the win10 Photos App.

It now works for some users and not others on the same computer.

 

When you double click a file to open it fires up with a black (not blank) page then crashes. The windows logs show it crashes with an error ID 1000 and the program reports "file system error (-2147219196)".

 

We have tried removing the profile and any reg settings relevant so it loads a fresh profile and still the same.

Some have said its windows update KB4345421 but that is not installed. Others are saying to re-install the app. Cant see how that would be if it works for some people on the same computer.

 

I was wondering if it was a windows update and if you are getting it as well around the same time then it is very likely.

 

Time to start uninstalling updates?

[mavhc]

Problem with UWP apps is they're somewhat per user, https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/wouldnt-open-photos-file-system-error-2147219196/ab8d1194-fc3e-46d4-a28a-fd5d04d91e57

[free780]

There is also a tracking of folder and files within per user buried in Program Files\Windows Apps I believe. I had to script a fix for some broken start menus on Server 2016. Edited March 2, 2020 by free780

[jamwatn]

Hi,

I've got the same problem at the moment. I feel it could be something to do with the account having the value in A.D 'proxyAddresses'.

Struggling to find a work around.

[markwilfan]

+1 for this issue. Tried everything I can think of. Thought I'd found a solution at one point by reinstalling all UWP apps using a script but it then borks again after a while

[jamwatn]

Getting to the point of considering pushing out another program to hundreds of devices...

[K-ITS]

We still use Photo Gallery here. Works with Windows 10 1909 thus far. We just install that and Movie maker and tell everyone to ignore the idea of the Microsoft Sign in and the Social links. Staff and pupils still seem to like it.

[chazzy2501]

The second I opened the photos app on a pupil machine as a pupil it installed "photos addon" from the store.

 

Helpful I know..

[2097]

Couldnt get it to work properly with Roaming profiles

 

We use the old Windows photo viewer , works fine for us

[mavhc]

UWP apps are weird, each one comes with its own per user registry hive, settings.dat, for a start.

[jamwatn]

We've started looking at imageglass photo viewer as it's nearly identical to Photos.

The only problem is, each time you run it there seems to be a wizard which doesn't have any documented way to suppress!!