Forum Discussion
new Windows Photos app ruins the "Open With" menu and won't let me open Photos Legacy
Hi,
For my work I take a ~couple hundred photos everyday, move them to my PC, and then use the Photos app to pick which photos I want to add to my work reports, right-click the photo to go Open With->Photoshop, then do what I need to do in Photoshop. It's been a very good workflow for me that has not needed any fixing or changes. But then Microsoft pushes a Photos app update that adds an extra step to the "Open With" menu so now it just asks if I want to open photos in File Explorer, Gallery, or ClipChamp (which I don't even have installed) then I have to go to "Choose Another App" THEN it shows me the Choose Another App window that used to open directly with the "Open With" menu that I actually want to see! This is severely irritating and unnecessary and really makes my workflow so much clunkier and worse! Then the instructions to go back to Photos Legacy app by going to Photos settings -> Open Photos Legacy is simply not an option for me.
So multi-part feedback here: 1) it was dumb to change the Open With menu at all. 2) It's horrible to give instructions to Open the Legacy App that do not exist in the real software. 3) There was nothing wrong with the original Photos app. 4) I really don't appreciate Microsoft changing things on my PC without my permission or knowledge 5) Then I try to get support for this and am told that there's no way to go back to Photos Legacy if the option doesn't exist in Photos app settings...
Long story short, this is yet another time where I've just been forced to abandon Microsoft software that used to be good and go to a third-party software (I've already ditched Office for OpenOffice, gave up doing anything with the XBOX app or GamePass, turn off everything OneDrive and Edge and News and Weather, etc...in this case giving FlyPhotos a shot, immediately it does what I want) and once users do that, they don't come back, not for many years anyway. When will Microsoft get a clue that they can't just always force users to accept their in-app ads, shovelware, and increasingly poor UIs? I've got a spare PC I've set up with a Windows 11/Linux Mint dual boot and my experience with that so far has been W11 is terrible and Linux is quite nice. If Microsoft still tried to make their software/OS good for users instead of using them as platforms for pushing users into whatever they think makes the stock price go up, I would never have reason to discover these entirely worthwhile alternatives to Microsoft!
2 Replies
- EaryamkBrass Contributor
You can either use the legacy app as your primary viewer (just set it as the default for image files), or keep using the new app and use the legacy version only for that one step—right-click, "Open with," and select "Photos Legacy."
- PihusvyTin Contributor
Bypass the new menu by setting Photoshop as the default app. This is likely the quickest fix. When you right-click a photo, the very first option in the "Open with" submenu is usually the default app. If you set Photoshop as the default for your image files, you can open it with a single click instead of navigating the new menu.