JackJ

walt.farrell, Thank you for your reply. I was logged into Affinity and got to the forum using their menu system. Frankly, I had no idea the forums were not a direct part of Serif / Affinity proper. Now I know why my message didn't go through until I logged on again (to the forum). I still don't understand their arrangement with Microsoft as they show no reference to my Affinity Photo license. They do show other things I downloaded from the site (probably freebees). You make a good suggestion to completely switch away from the Microsoft version on my laptop. I was thinking of doing that before I bought the new PC, and it does make sense. It's not so much about the amount of money; I just hate that I wasted it in the first place. Thank you also for the link to sign up for newsletters. I've been getting occasional emails from them so signing up may not give me anything new. We'll see. I can always pay full price as it's not really that expensive. But I am not in any hurry right now, so I'll keep an eye out for sales. Thanks again for your time and help. Jack

Hi. I bought Affinity Photo through Microsoft and have had problems sending photos from Lightroom after each new release. I have used a workaround but am not keen on changing MS folder & file ownership. I want to put Affinity Photo on a new computer but do not want to use the "free" download from Microsoft. Hence, I am thinking of buying another copy and installing it "normally" and have some questions: 1) Can I do that using my current login here? 2) Are there any concerns or issues I should be aware of having 2 different sources for of the same product? 3) Do you guys have any sales coming up or annual sales I can wait for? 🙂 Thanks for any help / direction! Jack Note . . . I apologize if you received multiple versions of this. I thought I was signed in and tried to send it several times before realizing I wasn't.

Hello again. Microsoft did me a favor and updated Affinity Photo to 1.9 meaning I was again unable to "Edit in" Affinity Photo from Lightroom. It also turned out Microsoft changed the "WindowsApps" folder permissions in Program Files, so I could no longer navigate to Photo.exe to fix it. Frankly I don't know when that happened as last time I copied the Affinity Photo program files to another directory. That still worked, but I wanted to use the new version of Affinity Photo. I remember I had some issues with "Take Ownership" the last time I tried to use it. I did some research, and it turns out the author updated the script this past January. In short, I downloaded it, ran it on "C:\Program Files\WindowsApps", and it worked fine; I now have access to that folder. His download link is below, but he also gives it within his scripts. New versions can be found here: https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/3841-add-take-ownership-context-menu-windows-10-a.html One last thing . . . To get it to work, I added the vcruntime140_1.dll file to "%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps" which is included in the user's environment "Path." At that point I could start the program by double-clicking "Photo.exe" in C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\SerifEuropeLtd.AffinityPhoto_10900.932.0.0_x64__844sdzfcmm7k0. (whew, what a long folder name lol). In my opinion, anyone with Lightroom or similar thinking about buying this program should avoid getting it from Microsoft. Maybe one day Serif will find its own workaround to launch it from Lightroom (including vcruntime140_1.dll as part of the installation would help a little). Hope this helps someone.

it's certainly much more elegant. Agreed except that Microsoft can come along and change permissions back any time (Feature Update?). That's why I like the whole program outside the sandbox like it normally would be. Regardless, before I had a problem . . . now I have choices. 😊 Thanks again! (not sure I did that "quote" thing right)

After getting it to work as outlined above, I tried another option. I copied vcruntime140_1.dll to a folder and added that folder to the top of my "System Variable Path" environment. I went back to the Affinity folder in WindowsApps and double-clicked Photo.exe. It started up just fine, so that's all it needed. Of course, doing this requires one to have the ability to get to the folder in the first place which is not for the faint of heart. Personally, I think copying Affinity Photo contents into another folder as IanSG suggested above is the best option (though you need permission to do that as well). At least this explains what Photo.exe needs in order to run as it did before. Good luck to others who have this problem in Lightroom.

IanSG, Thanks for that recommendation! I can now "Edit in" Affinity Photo from Lightroom. The down side is I have to keep a manual lookout for updates and suppose do the same when one is found. A little less than ideal, but certainly doable, at least until Serif or MS disallow that. Thank you for taking the time to share your fix! Jack

Dan C, Thank you for your response. In answer to your question, nothing happened with or without "Running As Administrator." I had the same result when I copied the folder to another location as IanSG recommended until I copied vcruntime140_1.dll into the same location. At that point Photo.exe would start from my new folder. I tried to copy it into the MS folder but ran into permission problems again. This happens even though I own the folder and have "Full" control. I think that's because I'm also a "User," and MS gives the lowest authority when an ID is found more than once.

Hello again. Short answer . . . it didn't work. I just tried the manual method in the link you provided. All seemed to go well, but I couldn't even open the "WindowsApps" folder when done (I could before). There was a popup with a "Continue" option, so I clicked it. I could then drill down into that folder. I went to the "SerifEurope...\Program" folder and tried to start Photo.exe manually; it would not start. Just to double-check, I tried to edit a photo in Lightroom. I got the popup, but Affinity Photo did not start. I then clicked on "Affinity Photo" in the Windows Start menu and it started, so I didn't break that. Not sure where to go from here. I understand this is a Windows issue, but it is terribly frustrating. I'm open to any other options you may think of.

Hello Dan C. Thank you for both suggestions. I tried the manual method last time. It didn't work, but "Take Ownership" did. At your suggestion, I will try the manual method again.

Hello! To whoever might answer, thank you for your time! I believe a recent update to 1.8.0.585 made the problem come back. I tried "Take Ownership" again, but it didn't work. What other options do I have? Does Serif offer a discount for those of us who unwittingly bought your software through Microsoft?

This is still a problem. With support's help, I fixed it once when I first bought it through Microsoft. Unfortunately, an update last week broke it again. I tried the same "take ownership" fix as last time, but it didn't work. In my opinion (as if anybody cares), Serif should not sell Affinity Photo Professional through Microsoft if it doesn't work like a professional program or at least issue a disclaimer of some king. In other words, I hold them accountable to either warn me before purchase or come up with a workaround. Had I known this was a problem, I would have bought it another way. To use it now I have to pay twice, continue searching for another fix, or greatly extend my workflow. None of these options appeal to me. No, it wasn't a lot of money, but who likes to give their money away to corporations and get nothing in return, especially Microsoft? Actually, I'm hoping to receive a scathing reply like, "Dummy! Couldn't you find this link that tells you how to fix it?" I won't hold my breath, though; last time they helped me fix it but made me feel I should have known the fix and I was wasting their time. OK, rant over.

Dan C. Thanks for your reply. As it turns out, I did find that page you linked me to. As a general rule, I don't like to download and run scripts from the internet, especially ones that affect the registry. I did try the manual approach but used the "Administrators" group instead of my logon ID; I did get ownership of the top folder but received permission errors for various child folders / files. With 240 folders in that directory, I decided to stop there and ask for help. With your prompting, however, I did download and run the script. Now all works as expected, though I feel sorry for anyone who gets this laptop when I'm done with it. In hindsight, maybe I should have asked Microsoft for help?. :-) Again, thank you for your courteous and prompt reply!! Jack

Hello. I'm a new Affinity Photo user and this is my first time here; hopefully I don't break too many rules. I purchased Affinity Photo 2 days ago, and it runs fine from the Windows 10 Start Menu. Problem: I cannot open the program as an external editor from Lightroom or FastRawViewer. Background: I downloaded your program from your website and installed it about a week or so ago. Everything worked just fine; I could open it as an external editor from both Lightroom and FastRawViewer. Microsoft advertised Affinity Photo on sale, so I bought it from them (that was my mistake). I uninstalled the trial version and then installed the version from Microsoft. As stated above, Affinity Photo opens and works fine from the Windows Start Menu. However, I cannot start it as an external editor from Lightroom or FastRawViewer. I see where the execution program resides, but I do not have authority to start it from there, even as an Administrator. I tried pointing both programs to that file, but it will not start (I assume for the same reason). I thought about changing folder / file permissions but decided that shouldn't be necessary since the program starts fine from the start menu. I've searched the 2 start menu locations I know of (C:\User\Appdata\Microsoft . . ., C:\Program Data\Microsoft . . . .). But the Affinity Photo icon is not in either, and I cannot find where it resides. Google is normally my friend, but no joy this time. Summary: Please tell me what I have to do to get it to work as an external editor (or give me a license to install it normally lol). Thank you! Jack