Can't open photos in Bridge or PS; msg. says Windows can't find PS 2025 exe

[ScottishHorseLady]

Hi All,

Went to work on some photos today and was unable to open them either through Bridge or PS.  Please see a copy of the message I receive in the attachment at the bottom of this.  I use Windows 11 on a desktop.

I am running PS and Bridge through the Creative Cloud program.  They are both up to date.  I've not had this problem ever and don't understand what is happening since I'm using PS 2026, not 2025.

I am able to open the photos if I use the "open with" command and tell it to use PS 2026.  I rename the photo and save it but when I go to open it again I get the same message that Windows can't find PS 2025 exe.

Please help.

Thanks for your attention.   Sandra

[Sameer K · Accepted solution]

Hey, @ScottishHorseLady. Welcome to the Photoshop Community. I'll help you figure this out. 

The file type association on your Windows device is pointing the operating system to open Photoshop 2025 instead of Photoshop 2026. Please follow the content here to repair/recreate the file type associations to point at Photoshop 2026: https://adobe.ly/4qSoWKn

Let me know if this helps.

Thanks!

Sameer K
(Type '@' and type my name to mention me when you reply)

[D Fosse]

I'm very happy there is now a good Help article for this rather common problem.

Even better would be if the CC installer was changed slightly, so that the old versions were uninstalled before the new one is installed. That 100% avoids the whole problem. But I assume this has been known for a long time, so maybe there are reasons for not doing this, that I don't know about 🙂

But you can do it this way manually, which is what I've been doing for many years.