Windows 11: How to add JPEG-XL support officially
Microsoft's Windows 11 operating system supports a wide range of file formats by default. JPEG XL, a royalty-free open image format has not been on that default list up until now.
What is JPEG XL? The image format promises better web compatibility than JPEG, including several features that allow webmasters and users to migrate existing images to the new format:
- Compression efficiency.
- Support for lossless and lossy compression.
- Support for transparency.
- Support for HDR and a wide range of colors.
- Progressive loading support.
- Backward compatibility.
The main downside right now is limited support for the format and a lack of hardware decoding support.
Windows 11: how to install support for JPEG XL
Microsoft published the JPEG XL Image Extension on the Microsoft Store. Windows 11 users may download the application to add support for the JPEG XL format on Windows 11.
Note: The image extension is only compatible with Windows 11, version 24H2. You get an JPEG XL Image Extension failed error when you try to install it on an earlier version of Windows 11 or on a Windows 10 system.
If you run Windows 11, version 24H2 on a device and do use the Microsoft Store, you may open the JPEG XL Image Extension page to download and install support for JPEG XL.
If you do not use the Microsoft Store, you may use this Adguard tool to download the plugin file directly from a Microsoft server. Here is how that is done:
- Load the Adguard webpage with a click on this link.
- Paste the following Address into the form field: https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9mzprth5c0tb?hl=en-us&gl=en and keep everything as is (URL and RP).
- Click the checkmark button to search for downloads.
- Click the Microsoft.JPEG-XLImageExtension_1.2.21.0_neutral_~_8wekyb3d8bbwe.appxbundle link to download the file to the local system.
- Double-click on the downloaded file to start the installation.
Windows supports JPEG XL natively after installation. This means that image viewing and editing tools should support the format.
Closing Words
Many image editors and viewers support JPEG XL already on Windows, either natively or as plugins. Paint.NET, for example, has supported JPEG-XL for some time as a plugin. The developer Rick Brewster has added the plugin now in the latest beta so that users do not need to install the plugin manually anymore to add support.
THE JXL IMAGE EXTENSION WORKS WELL FOR ME AS IS, PROBABLY BECAUSE I RUN:
Windows 11 Home (x64) Version 24H2 (build 26100.3323),
Paint.NET version 5.105.9191.33187 (64-bit) BETA. AND
IrfanView 64-bit for Win7, Win8, Win10, Win11 version 4.70.0.0 (64-bit).
XnView offers a [closed source] Linux version. It’s so much better than Irfanview.
Irfanview feels lame when I use it, codecs or not, and it doesn’t have a Linux version meaning Linux users would have to use Wine or something similar to run it. And Irfanview, like XnView, is closed source.
Picasa for Windows/Linux, while proprietary and no longer updated, still works!
Due to patent encumbrance on ANS the Asymmetric numeral systems (which Jarek Duda invented freely) this format will never become relevant.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asymmetric_numeral_systems?useskin=vector#Patent_controversy]
The patent is specifically about ANS with adaptive probability distributions, which JPEG XL does not use. There is no concern (among people aware of this) that JPEG XL is in any way affected by the patent
We actually have Jarek on the JPEG XL Discord server. The patent controversy is specifically around Adaptive rANS, which updates distributions on the fly. JPEG XL uses Static rANS, which is fixed until the end of the stream.
To quote Jon Sneyers, who created JPEG XL:
Yes. To be clear:
– The Microsoft patent is not relevant to JPEG XL. It is about dynamic ANS while jxl uses only static ANS.
– Microsoft has never claimed it is relevant, also not when ISO and IEC explicitly asked if they have relevant patents. In principle they could of course still suddenly make such a claim, but it does weaken their case significantly.
– Even if it would be relevant, Microsoft has publicly stated that they will not enforce this patent against any FOSS implementations.
– Even if it would be relevant, and even if Microsoft is lying about their intentions, the patent was filed _after_ early versions of libjxl were already published, which makes prior art pretty straightforward to demonstrate.
– Even if all that is not enough: both Cloudinary and Google own defensive patents related to JPEG XL (made available royalty-free, of course), which have only one purpose: fight back against patent trolls. If Microsoft would litigate to make anyone pay to use JPEG XL, the defensive clause in the royalty-free patent grant kicks in and automatically terminates Cloudinary’s and Google’s patent license to specifically Microsoft, revoking Microsoft’s rights, meaning Microsoft can no longer ship JPEG XL in any of its products, not even if they reimplement it from scratch. That is a pretty big stick. A patent troll like Sisvel may not care about defensive patents (they don’t have any products to ship), but for a company like Microsoft it seems extremely foolish, from a business perspective, to activate the defensive clause.
Please check your facts before spreading them.
On win11, if you get an error from the store you can obtain this using the following terminal command
winget install 9mzprth5c0tb
Oddly, trying to force download this on win10 asks for activedomain authentication instead of saying no compatible build exists. I wonder if this means support would eventually be backported to just entreprise users or is just kept internal for now.
Winget install 9mzprth5c0tb
Winget install 9mzprth5c0tb
Stuff like this is why I follow ghacks. Thanks Martin!
JPEGXL needs wider adoption. Microsoft supporting is a good push forward. Once camera makers support it it’s official.. but once the porn industry supports it it’s here to stay.
Why is Jpeg-XL a big deal because it’s the successor to JPEG and it’s fully compatible and can losslessly convert jpeg to jpeg-xl and vice versa while reducing up to 60% file size.
There’s an extension for firefox and chrome browsers that enables Jpeg-XL support called “JPEG XL viewer”.
Irfanview can already open this file format.
just my 2 cents …
From what I have read so far, the technology is not yet mature for windows platforms. There could be some issues with it including bugs and security issues.
xnviewMP is better and ships a much newer jxl library with real fixes.
Also lets you scan images and take screenshots directly to jxl
There’s lots of implementations anyway, if one doesnt suit you get your favorite in rust, swift, go, webassembly, kotlin or just passively from whatever imaging library you already use (imagick, magick.net, VIPS, coil, glide, kde’s kimageformat, GDAL, ffmpeg, SAIL, SDwebImage, enlightenment’s IMlib2…). For most of those, its either available out of the box, one toggle or dll fetch away.
Yes but irfanview is ugly as anything. Real news would be if a codec compatible with windows photo viewer is made available.
“From what I have read so far, the technology is not yet mature for windows platforms. There could be some issues with it including bugs and security issues.”
Geez, what a goober – it’s just a codec, it’s not nuclear physics. 10 years ago installing a codec was normal behavior, and didn’t cause people to sweat in the night. Everyone’s becoming wimps.
Crawl back under your rock troll.
Excuse me? “Anyone with a differing opinion to me is surely not a genuine person with a genuine opinion”. Yeah, you’re not the second coming of Christ, tone it down bud.
https://github.com/saschanaz/jxl-winthumb
For any remotely common Windows; my experience with Store-MS-Codecs is bad.
With this and other alternatives available, one has to wonder which one will eventually be mature enough to become the standard.
MS may even decide to put it in an upcoming release just as Irfanview already has.
I’ll wait until there is a clear choice made on one mature standard. I hate riding the razor’s edge.