well, this user does not require the ability to resize images on their pc, and I can handle resizing on my end with gimp. they'd be perfectly fine just using mspaint, but the problem is modifying settings to use mspaint by default for everything.
Windows Fax and Picture Viewer is the default. Double clicking an image selects the "Preview" option which is controlled by Windows Fax and Picture Viewer, which in turn will only print with Photo Print Wizard, which, oddly enough, and it may not make sense if you've never used it, does NOT allow printing at the default size as specified by the image attributes. Furthermore, and this is very important, when I send this particular user an archive full of images, they can open the archive from within the email client, double click the image and it will open with Fax and Picture Viewer; there is no other option. This user is completely computer illiterate, so I absolutely must dumb this process down as much as possible. In fact, asking them to right click has proven to be too much trouble.
Which brings me to the point you quoted. "The only option I think would be to go to each individual image file type in the folder options and modify them all. Does anyone know a simpler way?" Meaning going to Control Panel - Folder Options - File Types, going to each image, and modifying its behavior. Does anyone know a better option?
EDIT: Really, if anyone knows a freeware program (as I don't suppose reinstalling mspaint will accomplish this) that will associate itself with the preview option (and I think, therefore, allow opening images by double click from within archives) I think that'd do the trick.
