Bill Brookman

Hi guys. I am in a total mess. I have sent this to serif/Affinity: affinity@serif.com Dear Sir/Madam, I have exhausted the help on the forums with no success. I wanted to upgrade by Affinity designer, and downloaded affinity-designer-1.8.3.exe (494,722 KB) but got the message “Windows cannot access the specified device path or file. You may have not the appropriate permissions to access the item.” Risking that this was because the previous version was blocking opening the later version I deleted the older version. I still get the same error message inspite of having the product key. I have been working solidly on this for several days now and have exhausted solutions. What can I do? Now I have no Designer at all. (I don’t know what to do with the UI file either.) And in desperation have tried through your Covid90 day trial bundle of Publisher + Designer + Photo offer. I have the product keys - but what can I do with them if I can’t get into their exe files? But then I try the 90 day trial Affinity Photo Affinity Designer Affinity Publisher So I try to open affinity-photo-1.8.3.exe by double clicking it. Access denied “You will need to enter your product key along with your email address to validate your trial during installation.” So have just bought a new Designer package from scratch – And have exactly the same problems. I am following these instructions: “From your generated Affinity order invoice: Click on your Product key and Copy to clipboard. Click the download Button to download app. From the bottom of your browser page:… But I can’t find the browser page so I can’t find the download apps name. If I go to it via explorer and find the exe file - same problems. So I never get on to this: Double-click the downloaded app’s name. Launch your Affinity app from the Start menu.” Please help me. I am a professional designer and I have been unable to work on a commission for three days now. (I used to have enormous trouble with Serif from 2004 onwards. I have stuck with you because I live down the road in Loughborough. But it has not been an easy ride. I had so many problems I got to know Dan Reid, your sales manager quite well!) Please help me, Bill Brookman

So, my dear helpful friends whose patience I have sorely tried. I am so very grateful. I have downloaded (again) affinity-designer-1.8.3.exe It says 494,722 KB. I will wait to see if it loads any more. What shoudl I do next? I understand that if I treat it as a re-download I should add my email and product key - presumably when prompted - but what do I do to get this prompt? What do I do next with this file? Many, many thanks...

I have tried installing Microsoft Uninstaller Troubleshooter but got stuck when it asked me for the product code. I don't know where or what that is. I'm so sorry. This is not my area of expertise

Alfred, Hi. No I didn’t get any error messages when I uninstalled an earlier version of Designer. But, Walt, I admit I have not tried installing Microsoft Uninstaller Troubleshooter and using it. (phew! What a palaver!) The subsequent downloads: affinity-designer-1.8.3.exe (494,722KB) which I installed but got the “Windows cannot access the specified device…” message for, I did not strictly speaking ‘uninstall’ as they were not installed, I deleted them. Am I doing the right thing by trying to ‘run as Administrator’ the affinity-designer-1.8.3.exe file? It is not a zip file so surely I don’t need to unzip it! (I’m having exactly the same problems, same alerts, with Affinity Photo and Publisher by the way.)

Hi, Thanks. Full message “Windows cannot access the specified device, path, or file. You may not have the appropriate permissions to access the item” I have tried 3-4 times to down-load so do not think they are corrupted, and I monitored when the download was complete. I am supposed to supply my email and product key when prompted but get no prompt. I’m wondering if ‘Affinity’does not realise that I am trying to reinstall Designer, not install it for the first time. Thus it will not give me permission to install after download it, thinking I am downloading it for a second time. Do you think that might be it?

Affinity Download Problems May 2020 COMMUNICATIONS.docx Hi Mike W(?) Your reply is, I’m afraid, too technical for me. Downloading Designer, Photo and Publisher seems to place the files in the Download folders of both Bill Brookman, (a username) and This PC. Right clicking any of them and then clicking Run As Administrator gets the same “Windows cannot access…You may not have the appropriate permissions” Should I un-zip? In which case I need help with the un-zip sub-menu about where to unzip to! I am faced with a range of alternatives about where the files should be un-zipped to. I have always supported Serif as you are in Nottingham and I am down the road in Loughborough, but I'm sorry to say we look like we are returning to the bad old days of 2005 when Serif crashes seemed the norm to my utter consternation. I'll try and stay positive! I'm also a bit disappointed that I have already paid for Affinity Designer (Order number AWMRR6MFNF) and I may be having to pay over again in order to get an upgrade which I didn't particularly want, but your help tutorials kept pointing me to these newer versions. Keep smiling in the COVID crisis, Bill

I followed your link https://affin.co/WinSetupFailed and got the message "Windows cannot access... you may not have the appropriate permissions..." Your help page then suggests "Uninstall any previous versions of the software". I am worried about doing this - what if I uninstall 1.7.1.404 and then I can't reload THAT one? - I'll be in an even worse mess! Should I download 1.7.1.404 anyway and risk that that will allow me to successfully install 1.83.1 exe?