All applications associated with TWINUI

Question

I got several messages, that some function is now associated with TWINUI.

Now I have

What is TWINUI?

Solution 1

What is TWINUI?

TWinUI is short for Tablet Windows User Interface.

See later for a detailed explanation on what that is.

You have encountered a bug in Windows 10. The fix is to restore the registry from a backup before the corruption occurred.

---

I got several messages, that some function is now assaciated with TWINUI.

There is a bug in Windows 10 that shows for some users where they can’t change their system’s default programs in the Settings app. All their defaults have been reset to show “TWINUI”. This simply means that they have no default programs set, usually because of System Registry corruption, and they’re getting the same bad fallback name as surface in Firefox. The problem can be resolved by restoring the registry from a backup before the corruption occurred.

Source What is TWinUI? – Tablet Windows UI

---

What is TWinUI?

Windows 8 and 10 users may encounter something appearing to be a program called “TWINUI” when opening links and files from within a program such as a web browser. TWINUI is often mistaken for an email client or PDF reader because it most often appear when a user follows an email link or tries to open a PDF in web browsers like Firefox. However, it’s really a much less concise and more important thing than a just a single program.

TWinUI — or Tablet Windows User Interface — is included in Windows 8 and newer. It’s not a program on its own, but rather a system library that is part of the Windows Shell that provides a set of functionality — including starting applications to Windows itself and other programs. TWINUI is often mistaken for a built‐in PDF viewer or email client in forums and discussion online. This is most likely because most users will only encounter the name “TWINUI” when they either open a PDF file from their browsers or click on a mailto:, call:, or other protocol link recognized by the Windows app launcher.

Source What is TWinUI? – Tablet Windows UI

Solution 2

I recently came across this issue as well. I found a PowerShell script which fixes the bug and I'm now hosting it on Github at https://github.com/WillBixler/TwinUI-Fix.

TwinUI is a windows bug where the default windows applications or the registry key/value pairs associated with them are corrupted. The script that's linked above will reinstall all the default windows applications and reload/reset the associated registry values. It pretty much just does a clean install of any vital Windows applications that are broken.

Solution 3

I just ran into this same problem where TWINUI appeared as the default for multiple apps and since this posting comes up high in search results, I thought I'd share the solution that worked for me:

1) Hit the Windows button, type "default apps" and hit enter,

2) Scroll to the bottom of the Settings page that appears and click the "Reset" button.

For me, steps 1 and 2 corrected the problem in one case (Email) but not the other (Photo viewer), and trying to set the default manually only resulted in the Settings page immediately closing. To solve it completely, I had to also:

3) open the Photos app (which I wanted to use as the default) by hitting the Windows button, typing Photos, and hitting enter,

4) close the resulting "Let's get you signed in" pop-up window by clicking the X at the top right of the window (though presumably signing in would have worked here as well).

Finally, to answer the OP's question more succinctly (as I understand it), TWINUI or "Tablet Windows User Interface" may appear as a default app when part of the Windows registry is corrupt and it can't recognize the intended default app. However, it looks like TWINUI may also appear if the app you wish to use as the default needs some input from you before it can fully open.

Hope this helps.

Solution 4

According to a Microsoft Community post by A. User, "Twinui this is of special importance for those doing background processing, live & secondary tiles". This appears to be the mostest officialist available from Microsoftest. However, I find that Twinui is better defined as an error condition. The microdots above the letter i contains the fine print "If you can read this, something is wrong."

On one occasion when I encountered Twinui on Windows 10, I tried this:

• Open Apps & Features
• Search for "Microsoft" and for each app result in the search do (
• Click the App so that options appear
• Click Advanced Options
• Click Reset
• :)

View more solutions

Comments

[Daniel K]

Could you expand on this a bit - explain what the cause is and what it does?

[Will Bixler]

Answer updated with information on the bug and what the repair script does.

[Albin]

would be nice if you could elaborate a little more on how to fix it step by step

[wikiti]

Thanks for this, it was driving me mad! I couldn't launch the Photos app though (which may have been the root of the issue for me?) so had to do an additional step of repairing and resetting the Photos app in 'Apps and features', I could then launch Photos and it claimed the file association, afterwhich I could switch the default to irfanview in the GUI :) hooray!