XP: Windows Stopped Using Windows Picture and Fax Viewer To Preview Pictures

Contributor Icon Contributed by davak Date Icon November 9, 2004  
Tag Icon Tagged: Windows

You finally got addicted to XP’s built-in picture preview… and now it’s gone away? Here is how to redo it.


By default XP uses Windows Picture and Fax Viewer to preview pictures. It takes a while to get used to it; however, once you do, it’s hard to go back.

Several programs when installed try to take over the role of picture preview. This is very difficult to reverse. Here’s how you do it.

    1. Click Start
    2. Click Run
    3. In the textbox type: regsvr32 shimgvw.dll
    4. Click OK

You may or may not have to reboot to see your changes.

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  • Magic
    I recently lost Windows Picture & Fax Viewer from Windows XP and spent several hours/days trying to find it
    .
    As a last resort I

    1. went back into Microsoft Office Picture Manager (which seemed to have
    replaced Picture and Fax Viewer)

    2. selected 'Tools' from the header bar

    3. then selected 'File Types' from the sub-heading

    4. then 'unticked' all the 'ticked' boxes in the listing

    5. pressed 'OK'

    6. and exited Office Picture Manager.

    And Windows Picture & Fax Viewer was back! Hallellulia!

    It worked for me - perhaps it will work for you too. I do hope so.

    I didn't even have to reboot my machine. Magic!
  • askfault
    Thanks for the fix to restore my Windows Picture and Fax Viewer.

    Hard to find but simple to repair.

    registering the dll did the trick instantly!
  • Aziz
    I tried your suggestion to retrieve the Windows Picture and Fax Viewer. It worked immediately. I did not even have to restart my computer.

    Many thanks
    Aziz
  • armanthestar
    After this it says " LoadLibrary("shimgvw.dll")failed-Invalid access to memory location.
    now what to do.

    please mail at armanthestar@gmail.com
  • Happy Now
    This worked perfect for my problem! Thank you very much. :)
  • Jerry
    Fantastic! Worked just like you said it would! I'm sick of Reg Cure and all those orther crap co's trying to push their junk to fix all these stupid Windows errors! You gave the right answer and it didn't cost me a dime!

    Thank you!
    Jerry
  • moka
    thank u
  • Amir
    windows pic and fax viewer is not working in my pc. I am using win xp. how i can solve this?
  • Roger
    Thanks you so much now is working
  • Jimmy
    Thank you so much!
  • Werner Kujnisch
    The advice about getting Windows Picture and Fax Viewer back worked for me. Everytime I wanted to see a picture, Paint would come up instead. Now I got my computer back to normal again .. thanks to the instructions above. Thanks ...
  • You are welcome! Thanks for visiting and your kind comments.
  • salemi ala
    gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooood thnx
  • Anonymous
    I'm having the issue that my photos used to automatically open in the Preview mode of Windows Photo Gallery, and now it just opens Windows Photo Gallery.

    On my husband's computer it still works, and when he right clicks on an image it has Preview bolded at the top of the list, on mine it has Open bolded at the top of the list.

    How can I get back to automatically previewing my images? I get the message, "The module "shimgvw.dll" was loaded but the entry-point DllRegisterServer was not found. Make sure that "shimgvw.dll" is a valid DLL or OCX file and then try again." I've located the shimgvw.dll file in my System32 folder... but what can I do to get it working?

    PS - I'm running Vista, not XP.
  • Anonymous
    nice
  • Anonymous
    תודה
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