Opening pictures not working

Modified on Fri, 11 Jul at 10:23 AM

Issue Summary

Some users may experience a problem where opening pictures in photos.exe is not working on their Softdrive Windows machine.

Photos.exe is crashing due to graphics or runtime-related issues, and both are UWP (Universal Windows Platform) apps. Since you're running in an oVirt VM, this strongly suggests:

Graphics acceleration or rendering incompatibility
Corrupted or mismatched system/runtime libraries
Potential issues with the Windows App Runtime or UCRT

1. Re-register UWP Apps

Run this in PowerShell as Administrator to re-register all built-in apps:

Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register "$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml"}

This can fix broken UWP app registrations. Once this is done, restart the computer and test it out.

2. Repair or Reinstall Windows App Runtime

Since dwmcorei.dll and ucrtbase.dll are involved, try reinstalling the Windows App Runtime:

Go to Settings > Apps > Installed Apps
Search for Windows App Runtime
Uninstall all versions
Download and reinstall from the official Microsoft site

3. Check for Windows Updates

Make sure your VM is fully updated. Sometimes these issues are resolved by cumulative updates.

4. Create a New VM Snapshot and Test with Clean Profile

If possible, create a snapshot and test with:

A new local user profile
A clean Windows install (if the issue persists across profiles)