Is paid PaintShop Pro rigged to expire after 2 years?

[GlenT]

I was a Jasc user and switched over to PaintShop Pro after Corel acquired it. Recently, for no reason, my paid copy of PaintShop Pro 2018 started producing an error message at startup that it cannot find its resource files. Nothing has changed on the host computer, which is running Windows 7. The resource files folder exists.

I tried removing and reinstalling the software and deleting the resource folders and letting the installer recreate them. Nothing works. PaintShop allows me to browse to the folder but then just exits with no message after I select it.

Then, I realized that this exact thing happened two years ago. My copy of PaintShop Pro X8 stopped working in exactly the same way. Same computer. Same Windows 7. So I dug out my X8 copy and reinstalled it today. Exactly the same result. At that time (two years ago) I upgraded to PSP 2018 to get it working. Now the same has happened again with PSP 2018.

So, are paid versions of PSP rigged to expire every two years, forcing users to buy an upgrade to get them working again? See screen captures of errors attached.

[Kathy_9]

To answer your question, no, PSP is not set to expire after 2 years. I had multiple versions of PSP on my old Windows 7 computer for many years.

Did you try reestablishing the file locations as listed in the last line of the error message? Also, I see your screen shot references D drive. PSP typically defaults to C drive. Did you change the resource folders recently or have they always been there?

[GlenT]

To your first point, PSP does not startup, so I cannot reestablish the file locations using File - Preferences - File Locations.

To your second point, I have configured all of my computers for the past thirty years to have a separate partition (drive D:) as my data drive. On my current machine, Windows 7 is configured to recognize my Documents folder as the root of drive D: In both cases (X8, 2018) PSP correctly identified the locations of the resource files at install time with no editing or changes required.

I want to emphasize that in both cases (X8, 2018) PSP happily installed and worked fine for just over 2 years, and then suddenly quit working with this error with no apparent cause or reason on the same computer, which I acquired 8 years ago.

[ehume]

To answer your question, no, PSP is not set to expire after 2 years. I had multiple versions of PSP on my old Windows 7 computer for many years.

Did you try reestablishing the file locations as listed in the last line of the error message? Also, I see your screen shot references D drive. PSP typically defaults to C drive. Did you change the resource folders recently or have they always been there?

She is telling you straight. I am on Win 10 1903. I just now tried PSP4, PSP7, PSP11, PSPx4, PSPx7, PSPx8 and PSPx10 (PSP 2018). All of them work now. All of them worked when I had Win 7.

[GlenT]

She is telling you straight. I am on Win 10 1903. I just now tried PSP4, PSP7, PSP11, PSPx4, PSPx7, PSPx8 and PSPx10 (PSP 2018). All of them work now. All of them worked when I had Win 7.

At the very least, it is highly coincidental that I have now had this happen twice, both at approximately the two-year mark with no apparent cause.

[GlenT]

It is also worth noting that, for the past two years, PSP X8 presumably continued to not work, while PSP 2018 did work -- until recently. I have no doubt that if I were to shell out for PSP 2020, that it would probably install and work -- for a while. But I am reluctant to do that and would rather find a fix -- assuming that there is one.

I have to admit that I am a little bit cynical about Corel, having lived through Corel's acquisition of WordPerfect and the early days of Corel Draw.

[Kathy_9]

Have you tried starting while holding down the shift key to reset PSP. Sometimes the program "loses it's mind" and a reset fixes it. No guarantees but worth a try.

Here's an article that describes it. It references X6 but works on all versions,

https://support.corel.com/hc/en-us/arti ... figuration

[ehume]

. . . I have to admit that I am a little bit cynical about Corel, having lived through Corel's acquisition of WordPerfect and the early days of Corel Draw.

They seem to have a different crew of developers now. In addition, many of the features of PSP have been with the app since it was developed by JASC.

[JoeB]

I have to admit that I am a little bit cynical about Corel, having lived through Corel's acquisition of WordPerfect and the early days of Corel Draw.

I can understand being somewhat cynical about Corel. But, as others have said - and I can also say - we have had various Corel PSP versions installed for years and they do not stop working after two years or any other time limit on our systems. So it's not a Corel issue.

[hartpaul]

I have older versions still working but I have accepted the default and not stuffed around with partitioning or other drives - I see no advantage in setting up on different drives.
I use a 1 Tb C drive with plenty of room for programs and their respective user files/folders in the Documents folder. Currently I have 383 Gb free and much of that is casual data that I can eventually move to an external hard drive without problems.
Rather than regard PSP as rigged to expire , how about the updates and changes to Windows 7 that may eventually disconnect PSP. I note that Windows 7 extended support finishes in January 2020 so if you get it working after that you may find it lasts more than 2 years.

[GlenT]

I have older versions still working but I have accepted the default and not stuffed around with partitioning or other drives - I see no advantage in setting up on different drives.
I use a 1 Tb C drive with plenty of room for programs and their respective user files/folders in the Documents folder. Currently I have 383 Gb free and much of that is casual data that I can eventually move to an external hard drive without problems.
Rather than regard PSP as rigged to expire , how about the updates and changes to Windows 7 that may eventually disconnect PSP. I note that Windows 7 extended support fiishes in January 2020 so if you get it working after that you may find it lasts more than 2 years.

Again, the partition is not the issue. In both cases it worked fine for two years. I won't go into why I choose to do this, other than to say that it simplifies backup and recovery when things go bad.

My Windows 7 updates are current. Again, too much of a coincidence that two different Windows updates caused the same problem two years apart.

[GlenT]

Have you tried starting while holding down the shift key to reset PSP. Sometimes the program "loses it's mind" and a reset fixes it. No guarantees but worth a try.

OK, tried that. It didn't help. Not surprising as I've done (supposedly) clean installs which should get me to that state. Having said that, I noted that selecting the option to clear user settings and files at uninstall time does not seem to work, as user configuration files get left behind anyway in the user folders.

Here is someone else who seems to have a similar issue:

viewtopic.php?f=56&t=66023

[GlenT]

OK, I have been able to make some progress. In order to get PSP 2018 to run, I have to right-click and choose Run as Administrator. That's it.

I have no idea why or what has changed. There is one user on my system and I have full administrator rights. There has been no change to my logon. I installed under my logon. I do not use Windows logon, I only use the system logon. My system is on a homegroup network of two computers.

So the startup message appears to be completely erroneous. This is still a PITA. I can no longer double click on an image file to run PSP or right-click and select Open with because that produces the path error. I would like to be able to fix this.

[JoeB]

OK, I have been able to make some progress. In order to get PSP 2018 to run, I have to right-click and choose Run as Administrator. That's it.

I have no idea why or what has changed. There is one user on my system and I have full administrator rights. There has been no change to my logon. I installed under my logon. I do not use Windows logon, I only use the system logon. My system is on a homegroup network of two computers.

So the startup message appears to be completely erroneous. This is still a PITA. I can no longer double click on an image file to run PSP or right-click and select Open with because that produces the path error. I would like to be able to fix this.

It's a default issue with Windows - it always defaults to opening programs at a lower level than the highest (Administrator) level. But you can set a program to always run as administrator. Perhaps this link will help:

https://www.windowscentral.com/how-set- ... windows-10

[GlenT]

OK, I have been able to make some progress. In order to get PSP 2018 to run, I have to right-click and choose Run as Administrator. That's it.

I have no idea why or what has changed. There is one user on my system and I have full administrator rights. There has been no change to my logon. I installed under my logon. I do not use Windows logon, I only use the system logon. My system is on a homegroup network of two computers.

So the startup message appears to be completely erroneous. This is still a PITA. I can no longer double click on an image file to run PSP or right-click and select Open with because that produces the path error. I would like to be able to fix this.

It's a default issue with Windows - it always defaults to opening programs at a lower level than the highest (Administrator) level. But you can set a program to always run as administrator. Perhaps this link will help:

https://www.windowscentral.com/how-set- ... windows-10

That sort-of works, but I still have to acknowledge that I want it to run as Administrator. And it doesn't fix the double-click a .jpg file issue. And it doesn't explain why it suddenly needs Admin privileges to run in the first place.