Transferring photos from iphone to Windows pc

Hi

Just inherited my wife’s iphone 4s which now has my sim (sim only contract).

Have eventually set up my own mail accounts, itunes, icloud etc etc etc. The phone has many photos in the preset albums (Camera roll, My Photo Stream) and I’m attempting to transfer these to my Windows pc (Win 7).

I connected the phone to pc and synced itunes etc. The thing that confuses me is that I can access photos in My Computer (Portable Devices) but not in My Computer (icloud Photos). The latter just shows all the old photos that my wife took and none of my recent ones. I signed out of my wife’s icloud account on the iphone and signed in with my itunes password etc so thought that the cloud would show my photos as well now.

Am I missing something?

Do I have to set up “Family Sharing” or something on the phone?

Apologies if confusing or obvious answer but still trying to understand all these Apple systems!!

Thanks for your time.