I suggest using Windows Live Photo Gallery to view photos. You can edit them from the Live Photo Gallery picture viewer.
To make it your default picture viewer, go to an image and right click. Go down to "open with", and the click "choose default". Then click Windows Live Photo Gallery. If you don't have photo gallery you can get it here along with other programs.
http://www.download.live.com/
Remember you can uncheck any program you don't want in the installer.