Microsoft shares temp fix for Windows 11 Photos not launching

Microsoft has provided a temporary workaround for a known issue preventing the Microsoft Photos app from launching on some Windows 11 systems.

The company says this bug impacts devices running Windows 11 22H2 and 23H2, on which the "Prevent non-admin users from installing packaged Windows apps" or the BlockNonAdminUserInstall Configuration Service provider (CSP) policies are enabled.

Systems running Windows Home editions are unlikely to experience this issue because these policies are less likely to be enabled by home users.

"If your device has updated the Microsoft Photos app from the Windows store on or after June 4, 2024 (version 2024.11050.29009.0 and above), you might face issues starting the application," Microsoft explained when it first acknowledged the issue in June.

"On launching the app, it might display a spinning circle, after which it might disappear. If you have the Procmon monitoring tool installed in your device, this error might display as Access Denied error on Process Exit ('Exit Status: -2147024891')."

While Redmond works on finding a fix for this issue, Windows admins are advised to apply a temporary fix, which requires installing the latest Windows App SDK released during the July Patch Tuesday.

To do that, you'll have to go through the following steps:

1. Download the Windows App SDK by selecting the appropriate "Installer" links and choosing the appropriate one for your system (you can find your system's type using the "System Information" app).
2. ​To install, right-click the windowsappruntimeinstall-x64.exe file and choose "Run as administrator." This will open a command prompt window, displaying text while the installation is in progress (no action is needed while the command prompt window is open; it will also close automatically once the installation is complete)
3. IT admins can also run this installer in their environment using either system or admin context. The "-quiet" parameter can be added to the command to prevent user interaction with the prompt (the installer only needs to be run once per device, not per user).

Microsoft says it's working on a fix, with further information to be provided in an upcoming update.

Last week, the company fixed two more Windows 11 issues that caused update problems when using Windows Update automation scripts and triggered restart loops and taskbar problems after installing the June KB5039302 preview update.

Today, Redmond also confirmed that June Windows Server updates break the Microsoft 365 Defender network data reporting service and some features that use it.

This known issue (first acknowledged on Friday) only impacts Windows Server 2022 systems and will prevent additional Defender features relying on the NDR service to collect data (like Incident Response and Device Inventory) to work correctly.

Admins can confirm that systems on their Windows network are impacted by checking the service health page in the Microsoft 365 admin center for new alerts.