Can no longer edit jpg images

[AdrianW]

The other thought I have are the permissions on the JPG's folder. Have you tried creating a new, standard directory on your drive and attempting your JPG manipulations there?

I did manage to create a new image and save it directly to the root of my D: drive. But, then I couldn't open it to edit it again. (No problem with Windows Paint of course).

I created a new account - same problem. So, I deleted that account.

Then I tried a system restore (removing about two weeks of program installs and windows updates), and PSP worked fine for about 10 minutes, but now it's failing again.

I thought I'd try uninstalling again, and now I'm getting this error (I wonder who wrote that superb example of an English sentence):

[AdrianW]

Now, I'm trying to reinstall and I'm getting this:



I'm really disappointed with how dodgy this software is - I just won't play nicely with the rest of my perfectly working system.

[Simone Corel UK]

Hi to all

Let me explain what's behind that administrator idea.

With XP Home, Microsoft had already tried to create a user account with limited access. It was very complicate to have administrator access under XP Home. MS stopped delivering machines with XP Home in 2006, because too many had problems using programs with that type of user account control.
Under XP Professional, everybody complained that the user was automatically administrator.
Then came Vista and with it the new UAC. People didn't know that there was that tick that they had to remove before installing a program and complained that many programs wouldn't work properly. Also the famous Side-by-side error came with Vista and disappears as soon as we turn off user account control.
Windows 7 has got this bar and 4 types of choices between no and full restriction. By default, Windows 7 has got the bar on the second position and this is a kind ofrestrict quite gut. With other words, an administrator under Windows 7 has full rights to change, but using the second position means he has not full administrative access to a system and its registry. As a result of this is, when installing certain program, often problems come up failed to register . Error 1706 in context to installation of PSPX3 onwards is the best example.

Certain things like activation work on Windows Vista onwards only, if a user has got UAC turned off and right-click on program, Run as administrator.
What we generally do before we install a program is that we turn off the UAC.

Most programs (which require system access) work only with administrator account. PSP is a program where you need to be an administrator. You can have the UAC bar on the second position from the top, but your account must be that of an administrator. PSP will not work, when you use it with an user account. You will already receive a notice when you try to install PSPX5 with user account. It will not work and a pop-up message comes up you need to be an administrator.

With Windows 8 come again more restrictions. You can have turned off the UAC and Windows still complains. Additionally, manufactures like DELL or HP restrict their customers even more.
An example: HP didn't allow to use Run - %appdata%: Access denied. Hallelujah, how can we expect that PSP works when there is no access? A program doesn't work like I click myself to AppData of user John and put my database into Johns Appdata folder. PSP as all other programs work in a way that they look for %appdata%. If that access doesn't work, PSP can't work.

I hope it helps
Simone

[photodrawken]

Simone,
Sorry, but your explanation doesn't make sense or match the behavior I experience here in Win7 with my Standard User account.

Certain things like activation work on Windows Vista onwards only, if a user has got UAC turned off and right-click on program, Run as administrator.
What we generally do before we install a program is that we turn off the UAC.

When a program needs to be "activated" as a legitimate and registered purchase, simply running the program "As administrator" once for activating it is sufficient.

I think you're confusing the UAC with Administrator privileges. UAC is basically the prompt alerting one that a program is attempting to access features that the account does not have the rights to access.

Administrator privileges are the rights allowing elevated privileges to access those features.

Most programs (which require system access) work only with administrator account. PSP is a program where you need to be an administrator. You can have the UAC bar on the second position from the top, but your account must be that of an administrator. PSP will not work, when you use it with an user account. You will already receive a notice when you try to install PSPX5 with user account. It will not work and a pop-up message comes up you need to be an administrator.

No. I'm always logged in as a Standard User Account. When I installed PSPX5, I got the UAC prompt which asked for an administrator password. I supplied that password and PSPX5 installed just fine -- because the installation was now running with the elevated privileges of that administrator account. Once the installation had completed, I've been able to run PSPX5 from the Standard User Account without needing any sort of elevated privileges associated with an administrator account.

This is the normal, expected behavior of the UAC.

In short, for the past five years, I've never needed to "turn off UAC" for any reason whatsoever. Running as a Standard User, installation programs simply prompt for elevated privileges, and low-level system maintenance utilities that need elevated privileges are set to "Run as Administrator", which simply means that they always prompt for an administrator password when started so that they will run with the elevated privileges they need.

[Simone Corel UK]

@photodraken

No. I'm always logged in as a Standard User Account. When I installed PSPX5, I got the UAC prompt which asked for an administrator password.

You mix Administrator and User. Create a user account and you will see what I mean.

[photodrawken]

I mix Administrator and User. Create a user account and you will see what I mean.

Sorry, but I don't understand either of those two sentences.

I have two accounts on this computer -- one is the administrator account created when I installed Win7, the other is a standard user account I created after Win7's installation. Nothing is "mixed". Each account has the default privileges for the account type.

[Simone Corel UK]

administrator account created when I installed Win7, the other is a standard user account

Then you should use PSP with the administrator account, because of a natural limitation of a Windows user account. This is the problem that AdrianW has. Please note that this entry is not about your personal settings, but about AdrianW's problem. If he has no other program running - as he said - that keeps a hand over his pictures, then it must be his Windows.

[AdrianW]

Then you should use PSP with the administrator account, because of a natural limitation of a Windows user account. This is the problem that AdrianW has. Please note that this entry is not about your personal settings, but about AdrianW's problem. If he has no other program running - as he said - that keeps a hand over his pictures, then it must be his Windows.

I always use an administrator account, and X5 has been working until just recently. Today, I spent hours refreshing my PC (Windows 8 refresh) - and I've installed everything again from scratch.

And guess what - X5 is still not working.

I first ran "PSPX5_PF.exe" to install the original version, then I tried to update to SP2 using "PSPX5_SP2.exe" which will not install unless you've actually run PSP at least once beforehand!

Now I have a fresh install of X5 (15.2.0.12) and it basically was as bad as before (all the jpg thumbnails were missing, I couldn't open any jpgs, if I created a new image and attempted to save it and jpg as well as a bunch of other file types were missing from the save dialog).

But, if I right-click the PSP icon and run it as administrator then it seems to be working OK - BUT I've never had to run it as administrator before. So, I wonder what's changed.

[AdrianW]

I think I've discovered what my particular issue is.

I recently installed the Bins application which is a really useful little tool which adds some taskbar functionality to Windows 7 & 8.

I've noticed that if I prevent Bins from starting with Windows, then PSP will behave normally (i.e. I can run it normally and I can open, edit and save jpgs).

But, if Bins is running then PSP will not allow me to open, edit or save jpgs (unless I right-click and choose "run as admin").

[Simone Corel UK]

@AdrianW

Thank you so much for updating the entry and sharing the reason. I'm sure we can provide other customers with that solution.

[AdrianW]

@AdrianW

Thank you so much for updating the entry and sharing the reason. I'm sure we can provide other customers with that solution.

Well, it's not really a solution - more of a work-around.

[photodrawken]

Then you should use PSP with the administrator account, because of a natural limitation of a Windows user account.

Wrong. PSPX5 works just fine under a standard user account.

This is the problem that AdrianW has.

As it turns out, that was not the problem.

[photodrawken]

I recently installed the Bins application which is a really useful little tool which adds some taskbar functionality to Windows 7 & 8.

You might be see if Stardock Systems has a similar utility:
http://www.stardock.com/products/
I've never used their products, but have read good things about their Windows 8 utilities.

[Simone Corel UK]

@AdrianW

Well, it's not really a solution - more of a work-around.

There must be something in that Bins program that occupies JPGs (and Tiffs if I remember that list of missing file types correctly). I would suggest to look into the Bins settings or contact their support and ask why this program has such impact on another program.

@photodrawken

As it turns out, that was not the problem.

It turned out that it was the problem that I suggested in my very first reply, which, however, was rejected as not possible.

@to all

Please note that this error message "Unable to open file" appears if PSPX5 wants to access a picture and another program is working on that file in that moment. You will have the same constellation if you open a RAW picture for example in Photoshop and want to open the same RAW in PSPX5 (see screenshot). It does not happen if you open the same JPG in Photoshop and PSPX5. Photoshop as other RAW editing programs create a working file to keep changes related to the file. If PSPX5 accessed the same RAW, it couldn't make changes to it and therefore it doesn't open the picture. The other side is that Photoshop is locking the pictures for other programs until we told to finish the job.
Therefore, it would be interesting to know for AdriaW what this Bins program (if it is responsible) is doing with his JPGs.

[photodrawken]

It turned out that it was the problem that I suggested in my very first reply, which, however, was rejected as not possible.

You were absolutely right in your original reply when you suggested that the problem was that another program was also accessing the file. Although the other program was not the type of backup program that you mentioned, it was a 3rd party utility.

However, your subsequent (bizarre) assertions that the "natural limitation of a Windows user account" was the problem were not correct.

This is an important point, since it's imperative in these days of prevalent malware to not encourage users to run their computers logged in as an administrator.