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Windows 8 offers a slew of preinstalled utilities, such as Music, Photos and Reader, but these are inferior to free desktop counterparts such as Adobe Reader and VLC Media Player. You might even prefer using the default Windows Preview utility to loading a separate app for viewing photos on your desktop.

To reassign the default programs your PC uses to open common file types, right-click in the lower-left corner of your desktop to open Control Panel and then navigate to Programs, Default Programs, ‘Set your default programs’. Or search for Default programs in the Start screen. The Set Default Programs menu shows a list of all of your installed desktop programs; you can scroll down and assign your favourites to function as the default when you open specific file types.