File Associations Issue - Windows 10

I have been using Adobe Bridge for some time and it worked fine. When I double clicked in a jpg or gif file, it would launch photos.exe and work just like it does from file explorer. I then reinstalled Adobe Acrobat XI which had been removed by mistake and when I double clicked on a gif, I got internet explorer 11 launched instead. I decided to upgrade the gif functionality by downloading from the microsoft store gifviewer.com. This works great from file explorer and when launched from the start menu (and I have made it my default for .gif files). However, it doesn't work on Bridge. Bridge has a file association preference and I navigated to the windowsapp folder, picked the exe and get several error messages (mrt100_app.dll, sharedlibrary.dll, msvcp140_app.dll and vcruntime140_app.dll ------- all missing). So I reset the default preferences and rather than getting photos back as the preference, I still get internet explorer 11? I tried to browse to the photos.exe app in the windowsapps folder and selecting it, but when it launches, I get the first two dll's above shown as missing. Selecting a jpg file still works fine...just the gif files that are messed up.

I have removed and reinstalled Bridge several times, done a hard reset and discarded all saved preferences to no avail. I've also uninstalled Acrobat XI with no change, disabled scripts, etc. I've even run cccleaner (free version) with no joy.

BTW, I have windows10 home edition. 

I contacted support and after 6+ hours on chat and getting passed around to various teams, they concluded that Bridge is no longer supported and suggested I post here. Case number ADB-12210464-J1Q6

Any ideas? Thanks

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