Photoshop crashes immediately when opening files on Windows 11 (Meta Quest / Virtual Monitor)

I wanted to share a fix in case it helps others, because this issue had me stuck for nearly a month.

Photoshop was crashing instantly whenever I tried to open a file (JPG, PSD, TIFF) on Windows 11. Disabling GPU acceleration, resetting preferences, and reinstalling Photoshop did not resolve it.

I copied the full Photoshop crash report into ChatGPT to help interpret what was happening. The crash log consistently pointed to a DirectX 12 adapter issue during file open, specifically related to a virtual display driver installed with Meta Quest / Oculus.

In my case, the culprit was Meta Virtual Monitor.

What resolved it:

I uninstalled the Meta Quest / Oculus software from Windows Apps, then opened Device Manager, enabled “Show hidden devices,” and removed the Meta Virtual Monitor entry under Display adapters (making sure the driver was removed). After rebooting, Photoshop opened files normally and has been stable since.

Posting this here in case anyone else is experiencing unexplained crashes on file open while running VR software on Windows 11.

Hopefully this saves someone else some time.