Windows Photo Viewer too slow with Windows7

At some stage you probably color calibrated your display using the tool in Windows 7. As soon as you remove this calibration profile speed will return to normal.

Right Click Desktop -> Screen Resolution -> Advanced Settings -> Color Management -> Color Management -> Advanced -> Change System Defaults
Then click on the default profile (the one you are using now) and click Remove. The profile should have some string in it like 'calibrated' .

 

Make sure the new default profile does not have the 'calibrated' string in it. When you click Remove you will probably note some change in the screen colors as another profile becomes the default.
                Now suddenly the image viewer will be lightning fast.

                                    Or using

                                   Irfanview software

              Method 2 :  This returned photo viewer to normal speed instantly (no reboot required). My new monitor had some slight color tendencies I didn't care for which is why I used the built in monitor calibration, but that profile slowed my picture viewing to an intolerable level...You may be happy with the way the colors look, depending on your display...But mine was slightly off in some instances so after fixing the slowdown problem by deleting this profile, I got my display to look correct by instead by doing the following:

Again, You may not have to do this at all if your happy with the way the colors look...

I feel MS should really look into this problem because they include a monitor calibration utility with win7 but the result is an unusable photo viewer....as I have seen quite a few topics dealing with this slowdown...

          This worked for me instantly!
          go to: %WinDir%\System32\spool\drivers\color

          and delete the file(s):CalibratedDisplayProfile-x.icc

Thanks!

Method 3

I will need some more information to assist you better.
a) What is the format of you photos?
b) Does this occur with all kinds of pictures?

The performance of photo viewer can be related to picture size, memory usage and CacheSize of photo viewer.

                 I suggest you to perform the following steps:
1. View other pictures including different formats and different sizes and see if the performance is the same.
2. Use other picture viewer application to view these pictures and note its performance.

This behavior can be caused by precaching in Windows Live Photo Gallery too.  Precacheing can cause lots of system resources to be used. Let's try to disable precaching to resolve this issue.

To do this, please take the following steps.

Note: modifying registry may cause unrecoverable damage, please back up registry first.
1)    Click Start, and type regedit in the Start Search box.
2)    Locate and then click the following registry subkey:
       HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows Live\ Photo Gallery\Viewer
3)    Click Edit, point to New, and then click DWORD (32-bit) Value.
4)    In the New Value #1 box, type CacheSize, and then press ENTER.
5)    Right click CacheSize, and click Modify.
6)    In the Value data box, type 0, and click OK.
7)    Close Registry Editor.

Note:Important This section, method, or task contains steps that tell you how to modify the registry. However, serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly. Therefore, make sure that you follow these steps carefully. For added protection, back up the registry before you modify it. Then, you can restore the registry if a problem occurs.
Please refer the following link for registry back up:

                                        Back up the registry

You must be logged on as an administrator to perform these steps. If you aren't logged in as an administrator, you can only change settings that apply to your user account.

Before you make changes to a registry key or subkey, we recommend that you export, or make a backup copy, of the key or subkey. You can save the backup copy to a location you specify, such as a folder on your hard disk or a removable storage device. If you make changes that you want to undo, you can import the backup copy.

1. Open the Registry Editor by clicking the Start button  , typing regedit into the search box, and then pressing Enter.‌  If you're prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.

2. Locate and click the key or subkey that you want to back up.

3. Click the File menu, and then click Export.

4. In the Save in box, select the location where you want to save the backup copy to, and then type a name for the backup file in the File name box.

5. Click Save.