Not sure this is something people run into a lot, but if you are using Windows Live Photo Gallery and you can’t use it to view files by double-clicking on them anymore, the fix is to re-register the PhotoViewerShim.dll like this:
regsvr32 "%ProgramFiles%\Windows Live\Photo Gallery\PhotoViewerShim.dll"
This information is brought to you courtesy of winhelponline.com
Jocke