FIX: Microsoft Photos crashes when printing

How can I fix Windows 10 Photo app crashes?

1. Use a third-party alternative to Windows 10 Photos
2. Select the Repair option for Photos
3. Reset Photos
4. Reinstall Photos
5. Restore Photos’ default libraries
6. Reregister the Photos App
7. Print images From Windows Photo Viewer

1. Use a third-party alternative to Microsoft Photos

If you can view photos with Microsoft Photos without any issue, but get the crash when you try to print them through it, then your only solution is to use another program through which you give the Print command.

Since you’ll not be working just with common file formats like JPG and GMP, you’ll need a tool that can handle pretty much any type of image file.

Thus, software like Adobe Photoshop can easily come in handy.

Not only will it open any image file, but you can edit and enhance them in whatever way you want, and then you can set them on paper with the built-in printing tools.

Adobe Photoshop

You can view photos easily with Adobe Photoshop, and on top of that, you can edit them in lots of ways.

2. Select the Repair option for Photos

1. Open Cortana’s search utility with the Windows key + Q keyboard shortcut.
2. Input apps within the search box.
3. Click Apps & features to open Settings as in the snapshot directly below.
   
4. Select the Microsoft Photos app and click Advanced options.
   
5. Click the Repair button to fix the app.

Photos users can select a Repair option that will fix corrupted files for that app. That’s certainly an option worth noting for fixing the Photo print crash.

3. Reset Photos

1. Click on the Start menu.
2. Type Apps & features.
3. Select the app that you want to reset.
   
4. Click on Advanced options underneath the app.
   
5. Then click the Reset button.
6. Confirm your request and that’s it.

Some Photos users have confirmed that resetting the app’s data can fix the printing crash. Users can do that by following the aforementioned steps.

4. Reinstall Photos

1. Open Cortana’s search box.
2. Input Powershell in the search box.
3. Then right-click PowerShell and select Run as administrator.
   • Click Yes if a dialog box window opens.
4. Enter Get-AppxPackage *Microsoft.Windows.Photos* | Remove-AppxPackage in PowerShell to uninstall Photos.
   
5. Restart the desktop or laptop before reinstalling Photos.
6. Then click Get (or Install) on the Microsoft Photos page to reinstall the app.

If the above resolutions don’t fix Photos’ print crashes, try reinstalling the app. However, users can’t reinstall built-in Windows apps in the same way as third-party UWP apps.

5. Restore Microsoft Photos default libraries

1. Open File Explorer with the Windows key + E hotkey.
2. Click Libraries on the left of File Explorer.
3. Right-click Pictures and select Properties to open the window shown directly below.
   
4. Press the Restore Defaults button on that window.
5. Select the Apply option, and click OK to close the window.

Photos crashes can often be due to its Picture library source. Thus, restoring Photos’ picture library to its default settings often fixes the app crashing. Users can restore Photos’ default source by following the steps above.

6. Reregister the Photos App

1. Reregistering Photos will reregister the app with its user account.
   • To do that, press the Windows key + X hotkey.
2. Select Command Prompt (Admin) to open an elevated Prompt window.
3. Input this line in the Command Prompt, and press the Return keyboard key:
   • PowerShell -ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted -Command "& {$manifest = (Get-AppxPackage *Photos*).InstallLocation + 'AppxManifest.xml' ; Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register $manifest}"
     
4. Restart Windows after reregistering Photos.

7. Print images from Windows Photo Viewer

1. First, open File Explorer by pressing the Windows key + E hotkey.
2. Open the folder that includes the image.
3. Right-click the image to print and select Open with to open the context menu submenu shown directly below.
   
4. Users can select Windows Photo Viewer to open images with that software.
5. Then click Print to print from WPV.
   

Windows Photo Viewer is the default image viewer in earlier Windows platforms.

Users who have upgraded to Windows 10 from Win 7 can still open images within WPV instead of Photos and print them from there. Follow the guidelines below to open and print an image with WPV.