Search
  • For Individuals
      « Back
    • Windows Data Recovery

      Recovers lost or deleted Office documents, emails, presentations & multimedia files.

      Free Standard Professional Premium

    • Mac Data Recovery

      Recovers deleted files, photos, videos etc. on Mac.

      Free Standard Professional Premium

    • Photo Recovery

      Recover photos, videos, & audio files from all cameras and storage on Windows or Mac.

      Free Standard Professional Premium

    • Video Repair
    • Photo Repair
    • iPhone Data Recovery
  • For Business
      « Back
    • Email Repair & Converter

      Repair for Exchange Converter for EDB Converter for OST Converter for NSF Converter for OST MBOX Repair for Outlook

    • Database & File Repair

      Repair for MS SQL Repair for Access Repair for QuickBooks Software Repair for Excel Extractor for Windows Backup Repair for MySQL

    • Data Recovery & Erasure

      Data Recovery Professional Data Recovery Technician Mac Recovery for Technician Virtual Machine Recovery File Erasure Software Mobile Erasure Drive Erasure File Eraser Software File Eraser Software for Mac

    • Toolkit

      Exchange Toolkit Outlook Toolkit File Repair Toolkit MS SQL Toolkit Data Recovery Toolkit

    • Forensic

      Email Forensic Exchange Auditor Log Analyzer for MySQL Log Analyzer for MS SQL

  • Store
  • Partners
  • Services
  • Offers
  • Support

 

  • For Individuals
    DIY software for anyone who works with data.

    Windows Data Recovery Recovers lost or deleted Office documents, emails, presentations & multimedia files

    Free Standard Professional Premium

    Mac Data Recovery Especially for Mac users to recover deleted documents and multimedia files from macOS

    Free Standard Professional Premium

    Video Repair Windows Mac Repair multiple corrupt videos in one go. Supports MP4, MOV & other formats.

    StandardPremium

    Photo Recovery Windows Mac Recover photos, videos, & audio files from all cameras and storage on Windows or Mac.

    Standard Professional Premium

    iPhone Data Recovery Windows Mac Recover deleted photos, videos, contacts, messages etc. directly from iPhone & iPad

    Recover Erase Toolkit

    Photo Repair Windows Mac Repair multiple corrupt photos in one go. Supports JPEG & other formats.

    Standard Professional Premium


  • For Business
    • Email Repair
    • Email Converter
    • File Repair
    • Data Recovery & Erasure
    • Toolkit
    • Forensic

    Exchange Repair Repair corrupt EDB file & export mailboxes to Live Exchange or Office 365

    Outlook PST Repair Repair corrupt PST & recover all mailbox items including deleted emails & contacts

    OLM Repair Repair Outlook for Mac (OLM) 2011 & 2016 backup files & recover all mailbox items

    Exchange Toolkit Repair EDB & Exchange backup file to restore mailboxes, convert OST to PST, & convert EDB to PST

    Active Directory Repair Repair corrupt Active Directory database (Ntds.dit file) & extract all objects in original form

    EDB to PST Convert online & offline EDB file & extract all mailbox items including Public Folders in PST

    OST to PST Convert inaccessible OST file & extract all mailbox items including deleted emails in PST

    NSF to PST Convert IBM Notes NSF file & export all mailbox items including emails & attachments to PST

    MBOX to PST Convert MBOX file of Thunderbird, Entourage & other clients, & export mailbox data to PST

    OLM to PST Convert Outlook for Mac Data File (OLM) & export all mailbox data to PST in original form

    GroupWise to PST Convert GroupWise mail & export all mailbox items - emails, attachments, etc. - to PST

    EML to PST Convert Windows Live Mail (EML) file & export mailbox data - emails, attachments, etc. - to PST

    Office 365 to PST Connect to Office 365 account & export mailbox data to PST and various other formats

    DBX to PST Convert Outlook Express (DBX) file & export all mailbox data - emails, attachments, etc. - to PST

    SQL Repair Repair corrupt .mdf & .ndf files and recover all database components in original form

    Access Repair Repair corrupt .ACCDB and .MDB files & recover all records & objects in a new database

    QuickBooks Repair Repair corrupt QuickBooks® data file & recover all file components in original form

    MySQL Repair Repair MyISAM & InnoDB tables and recover all objects - keys, views, tables, triggers, etc.

    Excel Repair Repair corrupt Excel (.XLS & .XLSX) files and recover tables, charts, chart sheet, etc.

    BKF Repair Repair corrupt backup (BKF, ZIP, VHDX and .FD) files and restore complete data

    Database Converter Interconvert MS SQL, MySQL, SQLite, and SQL Anywhere database files

    PowerPoint Repair Repair corrupt PPT files and restore tables, header, footer, & charts, etc. like new

    File Repair Toolkit Repair corrupt Excel, PowerPoint, Word & PDF files & restore data to original form

    Data Recovery Windows Mac Recover lost or deleted data from HDD, SSD, external USB drive, RAID & more.

    Technician Toolkit

    Tape Data Recovery Retrives data from all types and capacities of tape drives including LTO 1, LTO 2, LTO 3, & others.

    Virtual Machine Recovery Recover documents, multimedia files, and database files from any virtual machine

    File Erasure Permanently wipe files and folders, and erase traces of apps and Internet activity.

    Standard Corporate

    Mobile Erasure Certified and permanent data erasure software for iPhones, iPads, & Android devices

    Drive Erasure Certified and permanent data erasure software for HDD, SSD, & other storage media Windows Mac

    Exchange Toolkit 5-in-1 software toolkit to recover Exchange database, convert EDB to PST, convert OST to PST, restore Exchange backup, and reset Windows Server password.

    Outlook Toolkit Comprehensive software suite to repair PST files, merge PST files, eliminate duplicate emails, compact PST files, and recover lost or forgotten Outlook passwords.

    File Repair Toolkit Powerful file repair utility to fix corrupt Word, PowerPoint, and Excel documents created in Microsoft Office. It also repairs corrupt PDF files and recovers all objects.

    MS SQL Toolkit 5-in-1 software toolkit to repair corrupt SQL database, restore database from corrupt backup, reset database password, analyze SQL logs, & interconvert databases.

    Data Recovery Toolkit Software helps to recovers deleted data from Windows, Mac and Linux storage devices. Also supports recovery from RAIDs & Virtual Drives.

    Email Forensic Advanced email forensic solution for cyber experts to audit, analyze, or investigate emails & gather evidences.

    Exchange Auditor Exchange Server monitoring solution to automate audits, scans and generate reports ìn real-time.

    Log Analyzer for MySQL Analyze forensic details of MySQL server database log files such as Redo, General Query, and Binary Log.

    Log Analyzer for MS SQL Track & analyze MS SQL Server database transactions log files.

    STELLAR EMAIL FORENSIC

    Advanced email forensic tool to analyze and collect the mailbox data of email clients

    Learn More arrow


    All Products

    All Products

    All Products

    All Products

  • Our Partners
  • Lab Services
  • Trending Searches

    Data Recovery

    Photo Recovery

    Video Repair

    iPhone Data Recovery

    File Erasure Software

    Exchange Repair

    OST to PST

    PST Repair

    Raid Recovery

    MS SQL Repair

  • English Deutsch Français Nederlands Italiano Español 日本語 简体中文
  • Support
Photo Repair 5 minute read

How to fix ‘Windows Photo Viewer can’t open this picture’ problem

Updated on May 20th, 2022
Sumona Chatterjee
Written By
Sumona Chatterjee
Rohit Arora
Approved By
Rohit Arora

Summary: Windows Photo Viewer is a default program to view photos in Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 10. However, there are several cases reported about Windows Photo Viewer unable to open CR2, NEF and other image file formats, along with this error message.This post shares how you can fix ‘Windows Photo Viewer can’t open this picture’ problem and view your photos on Windows PC.

How to fix ‘Windows Photo Viewer can’t open this picture’ problem How to fix ‘Windows Photo Viewer can’t open this picture’ problem

Are you unable to open images in Windows Photo Viewer on Windows 10, 8, or 7 computers? Is it giving ‘Windows Photo Viewer can’t open this picture’ error?

Windows Photo Viewer can’t open this picture

Contents

  • Common reasons for getting ‘Windows Photo Viewer can’t open this picture’ error
  • Conclusion

Common reasons for getting ‘Windows Photo Viewer can’t open this picture’ error

  • Windows Photo Viewer is not updated
  • Image file is not supported by the program
  • Photo is corrupt
  • Picture has encryption
  • Software conflict on your computer
6 Ways to fix Windows Photo Viewer can’t open this picture’ problem

1. Update Photo Viewer
2. Open photo in different application
3. Convert image to different format
4. Repair image with a photo repair software
5. Uninstall mobile phone backup suite
6. Turn off Encryption in image file

Watch this video to know how to Fix ‘Windows Photo Viewer can’t open this Picture’ error

1. Update Windows Photo Viewer

Software updates can fix bugs and other issues. Thus, updating Windows Photo Viewer might fix the problem.

Steps to update your Windows Photo Viewer in Windows 10:

  • Go to Start> Settings > Update & Security > Windows Update
Update Windows Photo Viewer
  • Select Check for updates
  • Check in the box next to the Photo Viewer Click Install Updates
  • Wait until the updates finish and then restart the computer

 2.  Open photo in different application

Windows Photo Viewer supports only JPEG, TIFF, PNG, GIF, BMP, DIB, and WDP file formats.

If the image file is of different format, open it in another supporting application. You can use Adobe Photoshop, IrfanView, Photo Retouch, Raw Image Viewer etc.

3. Convert image to different format

When an image file format is not supported by Windows Photo Viewer, you can convert the file to JPEG, TIFF, or PNG which can be viewed in Windows Photo Viewer.

This will fix the ‘Windows Photo Viewer can’t open this picture’ problem. However, this method will compress the large-sized high-resolution photos. But now you can at least view them in the program.

4. Repair image with a Photo Repair Software

The image file might be corrupt if,

  • Unable to open in Windows Photo Viewer and other applications
  • Updating Windows Photo Viewer or converting to another file format didn’t help

In such a case, try out a photo repair software because your photo is most likely corrupt, due to which it is showing the error.

There are several photo repair software available online. Most of them work only on JPEG, TIFF, and PNG files and do not support camera raw images. A more comprehensive and effective solution is provided by Stellar Repair for Photo that not only repairs JPEG and TIFF but also repairs popular raw camera file formats like CR2, NEF, ORF, DNG etc. The software is secure and advanced enough to fix images that are broken, pixelated, grainy, or have grey bands, etc.

The software can simultaneously repair unlimited photos of same or different formats.

Free Download Stellar Photo Repair for Windows
Free Download Stellar Photo Repair Mac Sierra

Steps to repair corrupt pictures with Stellar Repair for Photo

  • Download and run Stellar Repair for Photo
  • Click Add File
  • Click Repair
  • Preview the repaired photos and click Save Repaired Files

  5. Uninstall mobile phone backup suite

Have you recently updated your phone backup suite on PC? If yes, Windows Photo Viewer might not be able to open images due to this. The Android phone’s default photo viewer might be facing a conflict with your computer’s photo viewer.

So, try to view photos after uninstalling the Android phone backup program on your computer.

Steps to uninstall smartphone backup software:

  • Press Windows+Rkeys
  • Type ‘cpl’ in dialog box and press Enter
Run CPL Command on Command Prompt in Windows
  • In the Programs and Featureswindow, find your phone’s related program with its name (Nokia, Samsung, HiSuit of Huawei etc.), select, and click Uninstall

Now, check if Windows Photo Viewer is able to open your images. You can reinstall the phone suite, later.

 6. Turn off encryption in image file

Are you trying to open images imported from smartphone in Windows Photo Viewer? Smartphones have settings that encrypt photos, videos and other files. It might be possible that Windows Photo Viewer is unable to open encrypted image files.

Try to fix ‘Windows Photo Viewer can’t open this picture’ issue by turning off encryption in the image file.

Steps to turn off encryption in photos:

  • Right click on the photo. Select Properties
turn off encryption in photos - Select Properties
  • Under the General tab, click Advanced
turn off encryption in photos - Properties
  • Uncheck the box before Encrypt Contents to Secure Data
Windows Advanced Attribute - Encrypt Contents to Secure Data
  • Click OK

Conclusion

‘Windows Photo Viewer can’t open this picture’ error is not new. Due to limited file format support, users commonly face this problem. In such a case, converting the file type or viewing the pictures in different photo viewers resolves the issue. Often updating the application along with the Windows update helps.

Apart from this, when you maintain smartphone backup on computer, the device backup suite on PC can cause the error. Try to view the images after uninstalling the Android phone backup suite. Sometimes, the imported images from Android phone do not open in the photo viewer because of the encryption settings. You can remove the encryption on the image file to view it in Windows Photo Viewer.

When none of these troubleshooting methods works, it means the image itself is corrupt. A repair software such as Stellar Repair for Photo serves as the ideal solution for this situation. The software effectively repairs corrupt JPEG, TIFF, DNG, CR2, SRF, and other image file formats of DSLRs, camcorders, and action cameras etc. And it also works on an extensive variety of image corruptions including broken, pixelated, blurry images and more.

About The Author

Sumona Chatterjee

Sumona is a tech blogger, avid photographer, & technogeek with vast experience in writing about media file recovery tips and tutorials. She has over 10 years of experience in media file recovery/media file repair technology. She is passionate about Photography, Creative Designing, Music, and Exploring lesser-known destinations.

Best Selling Products

Stellar Data Recovery Professional for Windows

Stellar Data Recovery has the right Windows Recovery tool for all your data recovery

Read More

Stellar Data Recovery Professional for Mac

Stellar Data Recovery for Mac program performs safe..

 

Read More

Stellar Photo Recovery

A comprehensive photo recovery software to restore photos, music & video files

 

Read More

Stellar Repair for Video

Powerful video repair tool for repairing corrupt or damaged MOV and other video files

 

Read More

16 comments

  1. Phillips says:
    February 24, 2022 at 9:46 am

    Why my photo viewer is saying- “Convert Picture to Another Format?”

    Reply
    1. Sumona Chatterjee says:
      February 25, 2022 at 8:59 am

      When the image file format you try to open is not supported by Windows Photo Viewer, you’ll get the error. If this is the case, you should convert your image file to JPEG, TIFF, PNG, or any other formats that can be supported by Windows Photo Viewer.

      Reply
  2. Stevens rough says:
    December 30, 2019 at 10:57 am

    I recently purchased dell laptop that came with windows 10 installed. When transfer photos in drive and open I get this error and I think its problem with the Photo Viewer and Photos. What I do to fix it? Please help!

    Reply
    1. Sumona Chatterjee says:
      December 30, 2019 at 9:23 am

      Hi Stevens, Please update your windows OS and driver in your laptop. And if you are open raw files on Windows Photo Viewer you need to open it another supporting application such as Adobe Photoshop, raw image viewer. Thanks!

      Reply
  3. Harry Prenger says:
    December 20, 2019 at 10:30 am

    I just update my Windows 10, but when I tried to open my picture in Photo Viewer showing error “photo viewer can’t open because file appear to be corrupted” I don’t know what I do? Please help…

    Reply
    1. Sumona Chatterjee says:
      December 23, 2019 at 6:38 am

      Hi Harry, The best way you can open the folder containing all infected images and select all and right-click one and from the context menu ‘choose paint’. If you still find an error, you can try our software demo version and see the preview of repaired files. Thanks!

      Reply
  4. Martha Kent says:
    October 23, 2019 at 10:15 am

    Hi, I had this issue when i try to open specific jpg image file windows photo viewer show this error message. Thanks for provide the steps to fix this issue. Step 6 will help to fix my issue. Thank you very much!

    Reply
    1. Sumona Chatterjee says:
      October 24, 2019 at 3:09 am

      Hi Martha, Thanks for reading our blog and share your valuable feedback with us!

      Reply
  5. Colin Dutton says:
    September 19, 2019 at 2:50 am

    I had this issue when I try to open a specific jpg jpeg image file. I also right click and select properties and try to change the file extension with jpg but fails to open the file. Can this software repair my jpeg file?

    Reply
    1. Sumona Chatterjee says:
      September 19, 2019 at 11:00 am

      Hi Colin, Yes, You can try our software demo version and see the preview of repaired files. Thank you very much!

      Reply
  6. Ray Mosley says:
    July 10, 2019 at 10:22 am

    Hi, Couple of days there are no thumbnail and Photos open in Windows Photo Viewer I don’t understand what is causing this problem? I’m using windows 7 with 4 GB RAM and 500 GB hard disk. Please help!

    Reply
    1. Sumona Chatterjee says:
      July 11, 2019 at 2:32 am

      Hi Ray, I suggest please updates you windows because software updated will fix bugs and other issues. If the problem is same you can try our software demo version and see the preview of your repaired jpeg files.

      Reply
  7. Jessica Michel says:
    June 20, 2019 at 10:18 am

    I had the same issue with some of jpeg’s files that won’t open in anything else on windows 10. I don’t know how these files are corrupted after find the solution on your blog and try the methods to fix this issue.

    Reply
    1. Sumona Chatterjee says:
      June 25, 2019 at 4:36 am

      Hi Jessica, Thanks for sharing your valuable feedback with us!

      Reply
  8. Chris Prakoso says:
    May 21, 2019 at 10:26 am

    I had the same issue on my windows 10 when I open a jpeg file this error message shown. I had tried to fix this issue, but unsuccessful. I used your Photo Repair software that’s repair my jpg files. Thank you very much!

    Reply
    1. Sumona Chatterjee says:
      May 27, 2019 at 3:26 am

      Hi Chris, Thanks for choosing our software and sharing your valuable feedback with us!

      Reply

Leave a comment Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

  −  2  =  6

Table of Contents    

  1. Common reasons for getting ‘Windows Photo Viewer can’t open this picture’ error
  2. Conclusion

Categories

Related Posts

Lightroom Corrupting RAW Images on Copy & Import
Photo Repair

How to Fix Lightroom Corrupting RAW Images on Copy & Import

Stellar Author Sumona Chatterjee March 7, 2022 Read More
fix faded photos
Photo Repair

How to Fix Faded Photos — An Easy Guide

Stellar Author Nishat Paiker February 10, 2022 Read More
How to Fix JPEG Images that Look Grainy in Photoshop?
Photo Repair

How to Fix JPEG Images that Look Grainy in Photoshop?

Stellar Author Sumona Chatterjee November 11, 2021 Read More

Stellar Official Website

Stellar Data Recovery Inc.
48 Bridge Street Metuchen,
New Jersey 08840,
United States

ALSO AVAILABLE AT

About

  • About us
  • Career
  • ISMS Policy
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Use
  • License Policy
  • Refund Policy
  • End User License Agreement

RESOURCES

  • Blog
  • Articles
  • Product Videos
  • Knowledge Base
  • Case Studies
  • Whitepapers
  • Software Catalog

NEWS & EVENTS

  • News
  • Events

PARTNERS

  • Affiliates
  • Resellers
  • Distributors

Useful Links

  • Contact Us
  • Support
  • Special Offers
  • Student Discounts
  • Awards & Reviews
  • Downloads
  • Store
  • Sitemap
Follow Us

Stellar & Stellar Data Recovery are Registered Trademarks of Stellar Information Technology Pvt. Ltd. © Copyright 2022 Stellar Information Technology Pvt. Ltd. All Trademarks Acknowledged.

DMCA.com Protection Status
We use cookies on this website. By using this site, you agree that we may store and access cookies on your device Read More Got it!