In certain Windows 10 flavours, the traditional Windows Photo Viewer has been removed and replaced with the Windows Photo App which is a per user application from the store, this is frustrating from a management point of view in a multi-session environment such as Citrix or RDS. For example, if you install it from the admin account it will only be available for the admin.

This guide shows you to how find the offline installer/licence file from the store then deploy it into the online image using DISM.

Firstly we need to enable offline apps to allow us to download the required offline files, to do this login to https://businessstore.microsoft.com then go to Manage > Settings > Shop then turn on offline files

 

Using the windows search, search for the Microsoft Store, then search for "Microsoft Photos"

Change the License type to Offline, and click Get the app, which will add the app to your inventory.

Click Manage. You now have access to download the appx bundle package metadata and license file.

Go to Products & services, and select Apps & software. (The list may be empty, but it will auto-populate after some time.)

  • To download app package: Click to expand the package details information, choose the Platform and Architecture combination that you need for your organization, and then click Download. Save the downloaded app package. 
  • To download an app license: Choose Unencoded, and then click Generate license. Save the downloaded license. 

Copy appxbundle and xml licence files to a folder on the server/master image/multisession desktop

Run Powershell as admin and change to directory where files are located.

Check existing packages installed

DISM.EXE /Online /Get-ProvisionedAppxPackages

Add the AppxPackage and licence to the online image, replace with your path

DISM.EXE /Online /add-ProvisionedAppxPackage /PackagePath:"D:\temp\Microsoft.Windows.Photos_2020.20120.4004.0_neutral___8wevgh3d8bbwe.AppxBundle" /LicensePath:"D:\temp\Microsoft.Windows.Photos_8wevgh3d8bbwe_558f5d32-0677-eb7b-6ag6-d5d38b3aa.xml"

This should now be installed, this can be checked by running the same command again

DISM.EXE /Online /Get-ProvisionedAppxPackages

 

Test by opening a jpeg/png under another user's account on that same VM and Windows Photo App should now appear