Vista - how to make default action for opening an image file with photo ga

When I switched to Vista (from XP Pro) I found that double-clicking an image
file opened images in Microsoft Photo Editor. That is NOT what I wanted. So I
tried right-click-Open With---and chose Windows Photo Gallery. That opens the
gallery, but not the picture I wanted. Is this really the way it works? How
can I make an image file open in the Windows Photo Gallery by default?

Go to Control Panel > Default Programs > Set your default programs. Choose
Windows Photo Gallery, and then click on "Set this program as default".

"javanic" <javanic@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:69957A42-2673-4C7A-B4EB-A2C1D87E2A69@microsoft.com...
> When I switched to Vista (from XP Pro) I found that double-clicking an
> image
> file opened images in Microsoft Photo Editor. That is NOT what I wanted.
> So I
> tried right-click-Open With---and chose Windows Photo Gallery. That opens
> the
> gallery, but not the picture I wanted. Is this really the way it works?
> How
> can I make an image file open in the Windows Photo Gallery by default?

On Fri, 29 Jun 2007 20:10:00 -0700, javanic
<javanic@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:

>When I switched to Vista (from XP Pro) I found that double-clicking an image
>file opened images in Microsoft Photo Editor. That is NOT what I wanted. So I
>tried right-click-Open With---and chose Windows Photo Gallery. That opens the
>gallery, but not the picture I wanted. Is this really the way it works? How
>can I make an image file open in the Windows Photo Gallery by default?


It sounds like Photo Editor hijacked the file associations that Photo
Gallery would by default normally open. To fix it, so Photo Gallery
again opens common graphic formats go to Control Panel, default
programs and change the file associations one at a time like jpg,
tiff, etc.. Then when you double click on any graphic file (that
you've reassociated with Photo Gallery) it will open and then you can
use it's limited tool to edit it's properties.

If you want to do more extensive work on your images and don't want to
invest in something expensive like Photoshop, download GIMP. It's a
Linux based Photoshop clone that does many of the things Photoshop
does and it is totally free. I haven't tried it in Vista, used to work
fine under XP.