Solved Wanting to Have IrfanView Open Files in MS Paint to Edit Them, But Win11 Paint Won't Open

I have the image viewer/editor, IrfanView 4.60 x64 ( just upgraded from 4.44 today). When I was in Win10, I could set it to edit files in MS Paint in Options>Properties>Miscellaneous. After upgrading my PC to Win11, if I point it to MS Paint in the C:\PROGRAM FILES\WindowsApps\McirosoftPaint_11.2201.22.0_x64_8wekyb3d8bbwe folder. The app absolutely refuses to open when directly accessed like that.

I've found a workaround by using the Win10 MS Paint in the Windows.old folder. However, that's a 40 GB folder and it would be nice to delete it to free up drive space. I tried copying mspaint.exe along with the en_US folder into a different folder, but the app refuses to run if it's copied to a different folder; it will only run C:\WINDOWS.old\System32.

Is there any way to either make Win10's Paint work outside its native folder or to make Win11's Paint accessible to IrfanView.

Thanks.

silverfang77 said:

if I point it to MS Paint in the C:\PROGRAM FILES\WindowsApps\McirosoftPaint_11.2201.22.0_x64_8wekyb3d8bbwe folder. The app absolutely refuses to open when directly accessed like that.

Click to expand...

Now that Paint has been replaced with a UWP version you cannot open it that way. But there is also a new stub launcher for Paint that you can point a shortcut to.

You should be able to use a shortcut to....

%localappdata%\Microsoft\WindowsApps\mspaint.exe

We had a similar question about adding Paint to the 'Send to' menu, that shortcut worked there. see post #19 here.

Thanks! I found the stub and IrfanView opened the picture up in 11's Paint.

silverfang77 said:

Thanks! I found the stub and IrfanView opened the picture up in 11's Paint.

Click to expand...

glad I could help.