The Photos app available in Windows 10 has the annoying feature of breaking and displaying the message invalid value for the registry . Fortunately, there are several ways to fix the problem.

The Windows Registry isn't something you should edit if you don't know what you are doing or if you don't know how to back up the various entries you want to edit. In fact, even if you know your registry, backing it up is still necessary because if something goes wrong it might be difficult to recover it. If you are trying to open a file and you see the error message "Invalid Registry Value", there is something wrong with the registry. Of course, the message doesn't tell you what's wrong, but here's the fix.

Invalid Value for Registry Error When Opening Photos
Many users complained that they see the invalid value for registry error when opening JPEG pictures after upgrading their PC from the previous version of Windows to Windows 10. When they try to view the JPEG image in the photo app, they also receive the invalid value for registry error.

Generally speaking, the most important reason for the invalid value for registry error in Windows 10 is that the registry entry of the previous version may remain intact (technically they should be deleted automatically) whenever you upgrade PC or update your apps in Windows. These older entries conflict with the system process.

As a result, you are unable to view these photos.

Now, in today's post, I am going to show you how to fix invalid value for registry error when opening photos in Windows 10/8/7.

Step 1. Recover Missing Photos Before Fixing Invalid Value for Registry Error
When it comes to fixing invalid value for registry error in Windows 10/8/7 when viewing photos, experienced users always recover infected photos and image files before fixing this error because registry problem is serious and easily leads to photos corruption, damage and loss.

Now, you might be wondering:
"How to Recover Photos with Invalid Value for Registry error?"

If you cannot view photos because of the invalid value for registry error, you can try using MiniTool Photo Recovery to get lost photos back before fixing this error. Developed by famous software development company, MiniTool Photo Recovery is a wise choice for people.

This professional photo recovery software offers wizard-like interfaces as well as simple operations. Thus, if you don’t want to spend time learning a new program, you can try this professional tool. Even a new user can easily handle this tool to recover lost photos without any difficulty.

And, with MiniTool Photo Recovery, you don’t need to bear the risk of privacy leakage because it is a read-only tool. More important, it can help to directly recover photos from Digital Camera with ease.

A step-by-step guide to recovering photos with invalid value for registry

Firstly, download MiniTool Photo Recovery, install it on your computer, launch it, and then click Start button at the bottom right-hand corner to start photo recovery. (Avoid installing the photo recovery software on the drive containing lost data.)

Secondly, select the drive you want to recover data from and then click Scan button to start the scanning process. In this window, you are able to click Setting feature to specify certain types of photos before scanning this device.

For instance, if you only want to recover JPEG photos, you can only check JPEG Camera File (*.jpg) and JPEG Graphics file (*.jpg) in the pop-out window, and then please click on OK button to confirm this setting.

Finally, when the scanning process is completed, you can see this scan results in a tree view as shown below. The types of recovered files are displayed in the left list. Now, choose one type from the list and view its detailed items.

Next, double click on the pictures to preview them one by one, and check all photos you want to recover. And then, click Save button.

After that, click Browse to select a suitable place to store checked files. It's recommended to save the recovered files on another drive! Otherwise, the lost/deleted data could be overwritten!

The unregistered edition of MiniTool Photo Recovery only enables you to recover 200 MB photos in total although it can help to scan all lost data. Here, if you want to recover more lost photos, you can choose to get its advanced edition from the MiniTool official site.

If you decided to get an advanced edition of this program, you don't need to close the scan result interface.

In this window, you can click on Register Now button after receiving the license key, copy the license to the text box in the pop-out window and then click on Register button to enter the advanced edition immediately. After that, you can directly save needed photos without scanning it again.

Thus, all work has been done. Generally, in addition to photo recovery, MiniTool Photo Recovery can also recover lost videos. Here, you might be interested in this post: How to Recover Deleted Videos from Laptop with MiniTool.

Alternatively, there is another excellent file recovery software – MiniTool Power Data Recovery, which can also help you effectively recover lost photos with invalid value for registry error because of its excellent performance as well as simple operations.

This read-only, simple and professional data recovery software, developed by MiniTool Solution Ltd., not only can recover lost photos, but also can recover lost word document and other data.

Launch MiniTool Power Data Recovery.
Select the drive containing photos, and then click Scan button.
Preview photos, check needed photos, and then click Save button to store them on a safe place.
After getting lost photos back, it is time to fix the invalid value registry error in Windows 10/8/7 when opening photos.

Step 2. How to Fix Invalid Value for Registry When Opening Photos on Windows 10/8/7?
Here, we will show 3 ways to fix invalid value for registry error when opening photos in Windows 10/8/7.

Solution 1: Delete the older version of registry entries

As we know, the culprit of "invalid value for registry" error is related to registry entries. You can easily repair registry entries by deleting the older registry entries and clean out all the Windows store caches. Please take a few minutes on the easy steps below.

①Log on to your PC as administrator. Press Windows key + R key together to open Run box. Type regedit in the box and hit Enter to open Registry Editor window. Click Yes when prompted by User Account Control.

②On Registry Editor window, use the left pane and navigate to:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\LocalSettings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\AppModel\Repository\Families.

③Scroll down on Families dialog, find and expand Microsoft.Windows.Photos… folder. If this folder contains 8 Microsoft Windows Photos App entries, it means that the outdated registry keys have been left intact after the application update.

Delete the 4 entries with older version number.

It is not easy to delete the entries in Registry Editor window. First, you should take ownership of Microsoft.Windows.Photos_8wekyb3d8bbwe registry key. Follow the steps here:

Right-click on the older version entry and click Permissions…

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Click the Advanced button to continue.

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Click Change, enter your account name in the box and click Check Names. After that, click OK button to go back to the previous window.

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Check on Replace owner on subcontainers and objects, and then click on Apply > OK.

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Highlight the account you have just added. Next, tick the Allow box of Full Control. Click Apply button and then click OK.

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④Once you spotted all outdated version keys, right click on them one by one and select Delete.

⑤Finally, close Registry Editor and restart your PC, the "Invalid Value for Registry" problem might be fixed by that.

In case you still can't open .jpg files after removing registry leftovers, you can try using an elevated PowerShell to reinstall Windows Photos App.

Solution 2: Uninstall the photos app or any app that is causing the issue and then re-install it

Click the Start button located on the lower left corner, type PowerShell, then right click on PowerShell and choose Run as administrator.

In the PowerShell window, type the following command and press Enter to Uninstall Photos App.
Get-AppxPackage *photos* | Remove-AppxPackage
After it has been uninstalled; type the following command in PowerShell and press Enter to reinstall it.
Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers| Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register "$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml"}

Type Exit to close this window.

Finally, reboot your PC to save the changes.

If you are still facing the invalid value for registry error while opening images .jpg/.jpeg/.png/.gif/.pdf on Windows 10 after trying the above 2 solutions, you may try the following solution.

Solution 3: Clear Windows Store cache with WSReset.exe

It is found that Cache files can also affect the operations of Windows Store. Thus, this might cause the error invalid value for the registry. Try clearing these files to fix the problem.

Open the Run menu box by pressing Win + R keys on the keyboard.
Type WSReset.exe in the text box and press Enter key to start the process.
Windows Store will open and you'll get a conformation message saying that: The cache for the Store was cleared. You can now browse the Store for apps.

Bottom Line
After seeing the above introduction, you might know how to recover lost photos with invalid value for registry error and how to fix invalid value for registry error when opening photos on Windows 10/8/7.

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