When using Windows XP, i encountered a problem with Windows Picture and Fax Viewer. One day it just started freezing when viewing the pictures on the desktop. This was only happening when viewing images on the desktop, other folders were OK.
It turns out that if you have a shortcut to a image that’s unavailable, Picture and Fax Viewer hangs.
In my case it took some time to find the problem, because the desktop was spanning on my second display that wasn’t turned on. I thought that moving / deleting the images on the desktop would help find the problem.
Somehow Windows Picture and Fax Viewer is reading all the pictures in a folder, before actually opening them.
Deleting the shortcut resolved the hanging problem.
Sep 30 2011