Have had the same sort of issue over the past 24 hours. Windows 8.1 with everything up to date. Initially upgraded to latest version (1.83) last week. Install went fine and have been using Publisher a fair number of times over the past week but suddenly found yesterday evening that not one of the Affinity programs I have installed would open. Click on the icon and absolutely nothing - didn't even attempt to open. I have god knows how many programs installed on this PC and everyone that was clicked on, opened without any issues whatsoever. I went through the suggested software checks (above) but none really applied. No errors or logs found either. It's almost as if the exe file went nowhere! Downloaded the Microsoft .Net tool to check for problems. It eventually re-installed version 4.8. (more as a suggestion) but still no go!
Uninstalled, reboot, re-installed 3 times. Nothing, same. One thing I did notice on the uninstall was that the desktop icon was always left in place(?) as were the folders. Suspecting a file / registry problem ... Started off with Run sfc /scannow which did throw up errors that it couldn't fix. Then went into and trawled through the registry for anything to do with Serif Affinity and deleted them all - found multiple copies pointing different places. I'd always kept the default suggested paths so why I should end up with multiple versions? Reboot. Re-install, reboot, Open, Still refused to open. I then decided to do some more digging around and came across a website that mentioned this: DISM - Fixing Component Store Corruption Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Worked my way through the various commands - took some time. Rebooted, tried sfc /scannow and - that now reported all okay! I then reinstalled all my Affinity programs and hey, it all works!
What was the original problem and why only my Affinity software - haven't a clue. But I can tell you, I've been on quite a trip.
