Disable the Default Image Viewer

Important note: These registry changes are provided as examples of how these parameters might be changed. Be sure you have a complete backup of your registry and an up-to-date ERD (Emergency Repair Disk) before you make any changes. The Registry editor can make your system unusable, so be careful! We take no responsibility for these registry changes - do them at your own risk!

Windows XP is easily the best home operating system that exists today. However, it sure does have some annoyances that seem, well, just plain stupid.

One annoyance that I ran across was the habit that Windows XP has of wanting to open up the Windows Fax and Picture Viewer whenever I double-clicked on an image file. It didn't matter that I had installed Paint Shop Pro and it didn't matter that I specifically told Windows XP to use PSP for all image file formats. The operating system was determined to annoy me by ignoring my wishes.

As it turns out, there is a simple Registry edit to disable this wonderful feature.

Open up the registry editor and navigate to the following key:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\SystemFileAssociations\image\ShellEx
\ContextMenuHandlers\ShellImagePreview

You will see that this string contains a CLSID (a long, strange-looking value). Delete the string (making it blank) and your graphics program will be used to preview from that point forward.

There will be a default string that contains a CLSID. Delete this and the preview action will be gone! For the edit and print options, go to this key instead: