Can't transfer photos from iPhone 7 to my Windows 10 PC.

I am unable to get the photos from my iPhone to PC via USB cable. It used to work. But now it is not recognised by the Window Photo transfer app. It can be seen in explorer but never fully transfers multiple photos. It times out when I set the photos to 'automatic' in the photo settings. If I set it to 'keep originals' and try to transfer I get the above error. Before you answer:

• This is not answered in the apple 'support' areas. This error is not documented.
• Phone support at level 1 and 2 are unaware of this problem when I rang. This took a great deal of time. Even finding a phone support person is a challenge.
• Engineering is aware of this problem of getting photos off of iPhones. There is no solution they say.

As far as I know it occurred after an IOS update that moved the default saved photo setting from JPG to HEIC. Once again, they know about it but have not fixed it. They kindly sent me an email saying this. Not working with Windows 10 (the current dominant OS) is unforgivable. This expensive phone should work as good as a cheap one. Or at least as good as a 10 dollar USB stick. If anyone has a solution chime in. But please, no 3rd party apps or work-arounds.

This issues has been around for soooo long it's embarrasing... Please help.