The Recent Places shell folder that showed up under the Favorites area in the navigation pane in the earlier Windows OS, is not shown by default in Windows 10 and 11. Windows 10/11’s Quick access (which replaces Favorites) shows the “Frequently” used folders rather than the “Recently” opened folders.
The Recent Places shell folder still exists in Windows 10 and 11. Recent Places, which is now known as Recent folders, is very useful in Explorer and Common File Open/Save As dialog boxes in various applications. Today’s post shows you how to do the following things:
You may be wondering why Windows Photo Viewer, which previously opened images in a single window instance when multiple files were selected and previewed, is now opening up separate windows or instances–one for each image file selected.
The Windows Photo Viewer multiple instances problem usually seen in Windows 10 or 1 is not due to any design change, and no functionality is broken. It’s a simple file type association setting and fixing it that can straighten things up.
Selecting multiple files in a folder, right-clicking, and selecting preview should open a single Windows Photo Viewer window, and the user can cycle through the chosen set of images using the arrow keys. This is the expected behavior, and that’s how Windows Photo Viewer worked in the earlier OS.
You don’t have to read the next section if you’re not looking for an explanation for this problem. Proceed straight to the Solution part. Read more
Quick access, introduced in Windows 10, replaces the Favorites feature present in the earlier versions of Windows. It lets you pin your favorite folders, and it also lists frequently accessed folders.
In addition, File Explorer in Windows 10/11 by default displays the special user folders at the top, as well as in the navigation pane pinned under This PC. The shell folders namely 3D Objects, Desktop, Documents, Downloads, Music, Pictures, and Videos show up above the fold. These folder icons clutter the view, and push the disk drives category down below, which some users dislike.
This article tells you how to remove Quick access and also hide the special user folders from This PC view — both from the right pane as well as from the navigation pane.
When right-clicking a file and clicking the Send To menu in Windows, only the Bluetooth Device shortcut may be displayed, although the other shortcuts, including the default ones, such as Compressed (zipped) folder, Desktop (create shortcut), Mail Recipient, are intact in the user’s Send To folder.
On some systems, the Send To menu may be completely blank:
Windows Photo Viewer is one of the things that gets removed or hidden from access after upgrading to Windows 10. The new Photos app takes charge as the default handler for image files in Windows 10 and Windows 11.
The good news is Windows Photo Viewer application still exists in the same location in Windows 10 and Windows 11. But what is removed is only its registration.
Windows Photo Viewer is a lightweight app similar to the Office Picture Manager and Windows Live Photo Gallery, both of which are discontinued by Microsoft. But, Windows Photo Viewer remains an integral part of Windows 10/11.
Windows Photo Viewer is powered by a single DLL file named photoviewer.dll located in the C:\Program Files\Windows Photo Viewer directory in Windows 11 and earlier OS.
Windows Photo Viewer – photoviewer.dll in Windows 10 version 21H1.
For example, this command-line will open a file named D:\sample.png using Windows Photo Viewer:
Now, all we need to do is add Windows Photo Viewer file association settings to the registry. If you’re not a fan of the new Photos app, you can restore the missing Windows Photo Viewer registration in Windows 10 and 11. Read more
Earlier, we learned how to exit and restart the explorer shell safely in earlier versions of Windows. Task Manager has the Restart Explorer option in Windows 8, Windows 10, and Windows 11 that lets you gracefully restart the explorer shell.Read more
If you’re using the Desktop background slideshow or third-party wallpaper changer software and want to find the file name of the currently displayed desktop wallpaper, then this article is for you. The current wallpaper path is are stored in the registry but is not displayed in the modern Personalize settings page in Windows 10/11.
This post tells you how to find the current wallpaper file name and path in Windows 8, Windows 10, and Windows 11.Read more
When you try to start the Windows Firewall in a Windows computer, you may get a message stating that the the Base Filtering Engine (BFE) service is not running, and any attempts to start the BFE service may result in the error 1083:
Windows could not start the Base Filtering Engine service on Local Computer.
Error 1083: The executable program that this service is configured to run in does not implement the service.
