Windows won't let me watch photos as slideshow

I even went to the trouble of putting them in the Pictures folder. I watched a set of flashcards, but I wanted to watch another one, but all the selections under 'manage' are greyed out & unclickable. This happened the other day from a file in my external drive. I watched it earlier in the day, then later I wanted to play it again but OH NO , you can't do that. Is there a permanent fix for this problem?? Windows 8.1

 

Not sure about an 8.1 fix. However, I use a free program called Irfanview for viewing slide shows. That's just one of the things the marvelous little program can do.

 

If I download ifranview, can i just right drag & drop into the viewer or do I have to let it make a library for me? Will it be fullscreen? Will the pictures be still? (i tried playing a slideshow on PDVD & I needed dramamine!)