A Tale of PSP X7

[Kappes Buur]

I was swayed by Corel's advertisement to purchase a boxed copy of PSP X7 Ultimate, and the fact that Staples had it on sale for C$ 49.99 was further incentive. So, I bought a boxed copy and, with anticipation dropped the CD into my DVD/CD drive and was prompted to install the program. After a short flash of the DVD/CD drive activity LED, a small Setup box with white background appeared. And it stayed there, and it stayed there......

Then I looked at everything very carefully and found a sticker at the upper margin of the box front face, which read that the program needed to be activated by the cashier. I took the box back to Staples and was informed that the program had indeed been activated, as evidenced by the receipt, and that the activation process would need about 24 hours to be properly registered.

2 days later, I still only progressed to the setup box with the white background.

I took the box back to Staples and they, with profuse apologies, refunded my money.

How in blazes can Corel justify selling their wares on those terms?
When I buy a program I want to use it right away and not days later. That will have been the last adventure purchasing any further version of PSP.

And to add insult to injury, now I cannot install PSP X3 anymore.
I used their clean up tool CDS_2010-Clean-Up_ver1.9 and the procedure as outlined in http://corel.force.com/index/articles/e ... oto-Pro-X3 .

From now on I will stick with my old Jasc PSP 8, Gimp, Paint.Net and RawTherapee.
Good bye Corel.

[Joelle]

Ouch ouch, that's a nasty experience

I know it's a bit late, but it might have given less grief if you had downloaded the trial first.
I have not had problems with installation.
It seems to me that X7 works fine on some computers and not on others, which is very odd.

I am glad you got your money back!
PSPX6 is an excellent version, but I don't know if it is still available.

Joëlle

[rondo]

It seems that lately there have been installation problems on all of Corel's software for many users, but PSP has had the most reported in the forums. Corel acknowledged there are problems with their installer and said they are working on it, though I know that doesn't do you much good. Other software company's installers don't have the problems Corel does, and to not have it fixed yet is ridiculous. You could try a download copy from Corel's website, perhaps it has an updated and fixed installer program.

One way to get Corel's attention is to post your issue on their Facebook page- I've gotten some immediate responses from doing so.

[Kappes Buur]

That I can no longer install my copy of PaintShop Photo Pro X3 Ultimate really irks me. Not that I need it, there are alternatives, some of which are free of forking over hard earned cash.

As I mentioned, using all the resources supplied by Corel to clean a previous install didn't help. So, I opened regedit to see what keys are left behind and, my gawd, the number of keys still in the registry runs in the hundreds. For every function, dll, language, even when not required, there is a registry entry. To get rid of them manually, probably, will take a whole weekend, if not longer.

I imagine that, as long as there is even the slightest trace of a registry key, I will not be able to run PSPP Pro Ultimate X3 ever again. Which means, that I have paid C$ 100.00, well C$ 99.99 plus taxes, for nothing, or rather have had the 'priviledge' of a limited performance.

Why is Corel unable to provide a program which is easy to install, even on a repeatable basis?
I understand that they are rather paranoid over DRM, but their approach is taking it quite a bit too far.

Mysterious keys buried deep in the registry, program activation at the cash register. What's next, renewal at a yearly fee?
But as I mentioned before, that will have been the last time that I have bought a Corel product.

[Alex Brazeau]

Hi Kappes Buur,

Sorry to hear of your problems with PSPX7. Here's what my assessment of your situation is. While Point of Sale Activation (POSA) is a relevant thing to consider in troubleshooting this, our POSA process actually works very well and we get very few issues with that. So identifying this as an installer issue is probably the more likely scenario here. The best way to address these kinds of issues is to contact Corel support. You get a free support case when you purchase the program and our support team knows installer issues quite well.

Another forum member mentioned our awareness of installer issues. There's a good reason for that -- most installer issues are derived from pre-existing issues on a user's system, so its hard for us to predict a resolution without knowing more about the specific system details--so again, the answer should be to contact Corel support and we can work through the issue (and build improvements in to our Installer based on that.)

I hope this helps!
Alex

[Kappes Buur]

Hi Kappes Buur,
.........
I hope this helps!
Alex

It definitely is an installer problem. I tried twice more and I still cannot install PSPP X3. What the problem may be,
I don't really care. All I know and care about is that the program fails to install. If you want to justify Corel's decision
to include ever increasing DRMs, to make my life more difficult, that's fine by me. But, I'm done with Corel.

On a side note:
Prior to this, I had a box of PSPP X11, which worked sort of okay, which I gave to my son. He cannot install that one, either.

In the past, I had been using Jasc Paint Shop Pro version 5, the anniversary edition version 7.04 and version 8.
In the last month I installed and uninstalled Jasc PSP 8 several times Never with any problems at all. Guess what
I am using now.