Windows Photo Viewer


Windows Photo Viewer is an image viewer included with the Windows NT family of operating systems. It was first included with Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 under its former name. It was temporarily replaced with Windows Photo Gallery in Windows Vista, but has been reinstated in Windows 7. This program succeeds Imaging for Windows. In Windows 10, it is deprecated in favor of a Universal Windows Platform app called Photos, although it can be brought back with a registry tweak.
Windows Photo Viewer can show individual pictures, display all pictures in a folder as a slide show, reorient them in 90° increments, print them either directly or via an online print service, send them in e-mail or burn them to a disc. Windows Photo Viewer supports images in BMP, JPEG, JPEG XR, PNG, ICO, GIF and TIFF file formats.

Evolution

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+, Windows Photo Viewer uses Windows Imaging Component and takes advantage of Windows Display Driver Model.
Although GIF files are supported in Windows Photo Viewer, whereas Windows Picture and Fax Viewer displays animated GIFs, Windows Photo Viewer only displays the first frame. Windows Picture and Fax Viewer was also capable of viewing multi-page TIFF files, as well as annotating the TIFF files. Windows Photo Viewer, on the other hand, has added support for JPEG XR file format and ICC profiles.