Two images on one workspace

[Torben]

I once bought a version 6 Paint Shop Pro on CD, which has been running on two different computers during 20 years. A couple of days ago something happened to my computer, and I had to re-install my PSP. After that it functioned differently.

I allways load imagefiles to the workspace by doubleclicking the image icon. Earlier, if I doubleclicked two icons, I got two images in the same workspace. But now I get the two images in two different instances of PSP. So Windows opens two PSP programs instead of using the same program for both images.

I was happy with the first solution, and I have been through all the menu items and found nothing.

What can I do to to make PSP show the two (and more) doubleclicked images in the same workspace again?

You are welcome to notify me by email, please.

Torben

[flagpole]

Can we clear up whether you are using version 6 or X6?

Either way, levi has the answer in this thread.
http://forum.corel.com/EN/viewtopic.php?f=56&t=50481

[Torben]

There is no X in the version name.

And why don't I...? Because my way is quicker. And if a get an email with two images files, I want to doubleclick the images names in the mail. And it worked two weeks ago.

So...

Torben

[LeviFiction]

If the registry fix doesn't work. Were there any updates to Windows or anything else change in the last two weeks? Do you have a restore point from two weeks ago or so you could attempt to restore to?

[Torben]

I have restored back to 5/7, where I installed QuickTime 7. Then I deinstalled QuickTime from another reason: the file extensions .gif and .jpg could not be reserved in PSP, and it turned out, that they were taken by QuickTime. This I altered in control panel > standard programs > file associations. Now PSP can reserve the extensions, but not .tif and .tiff.

I can live with that; but doubleclick on two files still yelds two instances of PSP.

I also looked in the properties for the PSP icon and found nothing.

Torben

[Torben]

P. S. About 2 weeks ago, my Windows, at startup, showed a window: 'Can't run (some program). MSASCui.exe (or winHTTP.exe) is missing'. Later Windows told me, that Defender was not running.

That is the original reason why I restored back to 5/7, and it took care of the 'can't run' problem. But not the PSP problem.

Is it, at all, possible, that my PSP problem is due to a virus? And since it started, when I reinstalled PSP from a CD, it might rather be a Windows problem? Or is there some choice in Windows or PSP properties, that can fix my problem? I have looked, but found nothing.

Torben

[LeviFiction]

Every suggestion made to you so far has been for a Windows problem. I do not know of any settings in PSP that handle this.

The reason we believe it to be a Windows problem is because opening an image from Explorer or the Desktop via double-click is handled by Windows. It's the reason we suggested editing the registry which deals specifically with how the image is opened, what path and options are used.

Now, can a virus have done this? I'm hesitant to say yes, but technically if a virus were to corrupt something then yes it could. But that's not the usual point of a virus. It's also just possible that there was corruption of files that can happen randomly. But I wouldn't speculate that it's a virus. Do your due diligence and do a full scan but I doubt you'll find anything to explain this. At this point all I can offer are two very unhelpful suggestions. 1) Do a complete reinstall of Windows get everything back to the starting point before any possible corruption or settings changes happened. OR 2) Buy the lastest version of PSP. The latest versions do not allow multiple instances of PSP to run, so every time you open an image it'll only open in the currently open version of PSP.

[Troy at TheGTAMblog]

If I may pop in on this, there was a post a few years ago with a person having this same issue - and to solve it, they had to do a 'clean up' of PSP from Windows, then Reinstall it - but before running PSP, redo the Windows Program Associations for it... Here it is in his ("falconjoe") words:

Thank you all for your comments. I got it working correctly. What I did was to uninstall paint shop pro. Then I went into the registry and deleted all references for "psp" (paint shop pro) and rebooted. Then I reinstalled the program but did NOT open it. Then I went to default programs and associated jpg and jpeg with paint shop pro and rebooted. Now when I open pictures by clicking on them from inside of a folder paint shop pro places all the pictures into one instance of the program. This makes me happy!

Perhaps that will work for you...

If it doesn't, may I pose another Suggestion: use the Window layout option and switch it to something like Cascade (where it will keep the images as separate boxed items, but within one instance of PSP) - the later versions of PSP seem to Default to a Tabbed layout (where you can only 'see' one image at a time). Here is an example image of that:

It is just you will have to use the Open dialog/steps within PSP first, as Trueblue states in that other thread... Although it may seem 'backwards' ('pulling them into PSP from inside of it' versus 'pushing them into PSP from outside of it'), it will do what you want at least, for now [until you figure out what changed..]. Just a suggestion