Basic question: which of these two programs should I be using as my default to "open anything that this program can open?"  I have both of these programs on my laptop, for whatever reason.  My "Photo Gallery" is dated 2006 (it came on computer; I have Windows Vista Home Premium) but an update check indicates I am running the latest version and no additional updates are available at this time.  (I have automatic updating selected.)   My "Windows Live Photo Gallery" is "Windows Live Photo Gallery 2011," copyright 2010.  I did not download it intentionally; did I get it when I installed Microsoft Office 2010?  I cannot find any way of checking for updates, update history, etc., on this program. 

I am only a casual photographer (camera phone), but often get pix from others.  Sometimes I get an error saying "Photo Gallery Cannot Open: you don't have the latest updates or file format not supported."  I am wondering if this could be rectified, at least sometimes, if I had the "open this picture" process defaulting to the better choice of the two versions of Photo Gallery that I have. 

Any comments that would shed light on any of the above, or related matters, would be GREATLY APPRECIATED!  (Especially since I see that Windows Live Photo Gallery, in its latest incarnations, is now called just Photo Gallery. Yet my Photo Gallery is older than my Windows live Photo Gallery!  So I don't really know which of my two programs is the most up to date, etc.)