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This was discussed in another related thread and tested by a number of users using the “unzip to desktop” unofficial install method for the MSIX package in order to negate sandbox. It was learned that there is a significant performance increase when using the same package un-sandboxed versus sandboxed. (i.e. sandboxed == slower) It seems to impact higher end hardware more, but it isn’t clear for sure without more machines being tested. I tested an AMD card in the other thread and it showed a hit, but that card is not that powerful compared to the others. (Feel free to add your own tests below with higher end AMD cards) These tests are using the official 2.0.4.1701 MSIX installation vs MSI installations. 230127_2.0.4.1701_Sanded-vs-Unsanded-Benchmarks_ALL-MACHINES.zip I tested with 3 machines using 3x benchmarks for averaging each installation method: Machine 1 (Main): Microsoft Windows 10 Home (Build 19045) AMD Ryzen 7 5800X @ 3.8Ghz (-30 all core +200mhz PBO); Mobo: Asus X470 Prime Pro 32GB DDR4 (3600Mhz) EVGA NVIDIA GeForce GTX 3080 X3C Ultra 12GB Monitor 1&2 4K @ 150% Perf Variance: 16 ~ 20% Sanded: Unsanded: Machine 2 (Hub’s): Microsoft Windows 10 Home (Build 19044) AMD Ryzen 5 5600X 6 core @ 3.7Ghz Asus ROG Strix B450-F Gaming 16GB DDR4 (3200Mhz) Gigabyte RTX 3070 Gaming OC 8GB Rev 2.0 Monitor 1 1440p @ 225% Perf Variance: 15 ~ 21% Sanded: Unsanded: Machine 3 (Living Room): Microsoft Windows 10 Home (Build 19045) AMD Ryzen 7 3600 6-core @ 3.8Ghz (-30 all core +200mhz PBO) ASRock A520M-HDV 32GB DDR4 (3000Mhz) Asus TUF GTX 1660 TI Monitor 1 4K @ 225% Perf Variance: 12 ~ 14% Sanded: Unsanded:

I am a Windows 11 user, and I'm a bit confused about the difference between "download MSIX from Affinity official site" and "download Affinity applications from Microsoft Store". Are they both able to get the latest updates automatically? And are there any limitations if I use the Microsoft Store applications?

Even though I really like the Affinity suite of programs, I had been sticking with an old version of AutoDesk Sketchbook for doing my sketches, because it has nice perspective drawing guides, that allow me to A) Import a photo of a room or building, B) Insert perspective guides and align them with the actual lines in the photo, then C) Easily sketch out a project that I want to build, over that photo. Before V2 came out, I hadn't really been thinking of the Affinity programs as effective tools to do rough sketching. When Krita 5.x came out, I took a look and discovered that they had even better perspective guides than AutoDesk Sketchbook. And so, I began working on learning Krita, with the intention to use it for all sketching and painting work. I figured, I would reserve the Affinity programs for use when I needed a more "finished look." Of course, this meant that I would have to learn two very different user interfaces and "modus operandi." As I have said elsewhere, when the V2 versions of the Affinity programs came out, I immediately "upgraded," even though I knew they did not have perspective guides at all. I did this because I knew I would still want to use those programs for that "finished look," and I knew there would likely be at least three years worth of upgrades forthcoming. (All the videos and tutorials about "perspective guides" were merely about drawing some lines on a transparent-ish top layer and simply following them with your eye. Personally, I found that to be an absolutely lame workaround, and it really exposed which YouTubers were willing to repeat nonsense just to generate content.) And then I happened to notice someone mention this "helper utility" called, Lazy Nezumi Pro, in a YouTube video, almost as an aside. It promised to fill in all the blanks of the "missing" drawing guides in the Affinity programs, and more. I did some research, and saw that it didn't work with Affinity programs at first but, upon request, they adapted it to work with the V1 apps. Unfortunately, while doing said research I found a mention that Lazy Nezumi Pro will not work with programs that are "sandboxed," and my heart just sunk. Here, I had thought I had figured out a way to focus all of my energies on learning only one suite of programs. I wrote the makers of Lazy Nezumi Pro, and they tell me that, indeed, their app will not work with any programs that are "sandboxed," as the V2 programs are. So, I know this will not make the developers work any faster. But I do hope this helps impress upon the executives in the company that there is more to be gained from getting that .MSI installer out, than simply being able to launch Affinity Photo from within various photo managers. Who knows how many add-ons and/or plug-ins do not work simply because the Affinity programs are not installed like a regular program. Who knows how much additional functionality Affinity users are forced to give up (besides what comes in the "box"), and where their threshold will be for choosing to simply use a different program. As it is, I still have to use Krita for my original sketches. The more time I spend learning Krita, the less time I have to learn Affinity programs. And, the more likely I will be to just recommend Krita to someone, rather than Affinity, just because I know it better. Something tells me that is not the outcome you desire. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk. Edit: I was hoping I would have to add this but: Please only stick to the question at hand. I am not asking how to be a better artist. And I am certainly not asking how to be an artist exactly like you. And to be even more clear, "perspective guides" are not stabilizers.

Pros: MSI had an installation success rate of ~85% (and we have many requests to our tech support team for v1 install failures). MSIX promises a 99.9% success rate. MSI requires admin privileges to install. MSIX installs per-user, but files are deduplicated so that disk space isn't wasted. MSI apps are not sandboxed from other applications, meaning other applications can break those apps (we have seen this with several third-party apps in the past). MSIX apps are sandboxed to prevent this. MSI updates require a manual download of the full ~550mb installer which must be manually installed. MSIX can perform in-app delta updates which are smaller and faster. MSI updates can only be performed one at a time. MSIX can update all three apps simultaneously. MSI cannot guarantee that an uninstall will leave your machine in the exact state prior to install. MSIX installs are segregated and don't rely on the registry or special filesystem locations meaning an uninstall always leaves you in a clean state. Installation and app data paths are cleaned on uninstall. MSI apps cannot integrate with Microsoft Photos app to provide "Edit In..." style features. MSIX can. MSI does not require a digital signature. MSIX does (this means any MSIX that appears to be from Serif, will be guaranteed to be from us and only us). Cons: MSI can allow the user to change the installation directory. MSIX can move installed apps to different drives, but it cannot choose a specific directory (due to the sandbox). See below: MSI can allow an option to install a desktop shortcut. MSIX doesn't provide this as an option, but you can pin the apps to either the Start Menu or the Taskbar. There is also the secret Shell:AppsFolder location in Explorer that allows you to right-click or drag the icon to your Desktop for a shortcut as a workaround if you need it. MSI has easy discovery of undocumented app locations for launching from a third-party. MSIX hides the install location due to the sandbox, but we use App Execution Alias to enable this scenario. You can find the aliases in the following location: C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps\AffinityDesigner2.exe C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps\AffinityPhoto2.exe C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps\AffinityPublisher2.exe Remembering to replace username with your Windows username. Also, those paths are already in your %PATH% variable so you can often launch them without even specifying the full path, e.g. just AffinityPhoto2.exe. There are bugs in some third-party applications with the App Execution Alias , and the next post includes aflaunch.exe as a work around if you need that instead.

The error "The data area passed to a system call is too small" can appear when trying to run Affinity V2 on Windows. This issue is related to how Affinity V2 installs into the WindowsApps folder and Microsoft SQL Server. The below KB update from Microsoft should resolve the issue: https://support.microsoft.com/topic/kb4073393-fix-the-data-area-passed-to-a-system-call-is-too-small-error-when-you-start-a-desktop-bridge-application-on-a-sql-server-5ae0994d-023a-d32b-3aad-526500b53993

This can happen if the AppX Deployment Service (AppXSVC) is disabled for some reason. It can be enabled by following the below steps: Press the Windows Key + R Type Regedit into the Run dialog and press OK Navigate to Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\AppXSvc In the right pane double click on Start Change Value data to 2 and press OK Now restart your computer and try installing your Affinity V2 app again.

This message can occur if you don't have Microsoft App Installer installed. It can be downloaded from within the Microsoft Store here. Alternatively, you can install the app using the Powershell method as described here:

If you're looking to access Affinity V2 from another app on Windows - for example, using Affinity Photo V2 as an External Editor in Raw Therapee, you will need to point to the app's execution alias. They can be found here (assuming default installation location): Affinity Photo V2: C:\Users\[USERNAME]\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps\AffinityPhoto2.exe Affinity Designer V2: C:\Users\[USERNAME]\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps\AffinityDesigner2.exe Affinity Publisher V2: C:\Users\[USERNAME]\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps\AffinityPublisher2.exe

If you're getting the error App Installer failed to install package dependencies. Ask the developer for package when installing Affinity V2 on Windows, you will need to download and install the Microsoft.VCLibs.x64.14.00.Desktop.appx package from Microsoft here. Once installed you will be able to install Affinity V2 without any issues.

If you're trying to install the Affinity Store or Microsoft Store version of Affinity on Windows and it's failing with the following reason: Windows cannot install package ... because a different package ... with the same name is already installed. Remove package ... before installing. (0x80073cf3) This indicates that there's already an existing version of the app installed. An example of this would be downloading and installing V2 directly from the Affinity Store and then trying to install Affinity V2 again directly from the Microsoft Store. You can go to Apps > Apps & features to see if you have an existing version installed. Please Note: Because of this behavior it's not possible to have both the Affinity Store and Microsoft Store versions of Affinity V2 apps installed alongside each other on the same device.

Before going any further, please make sure that you're using a supported operating system. Affinity V2 WILL ONLY INSTALL AND RUN on Windows 11 & Windows 10 May 2020 Update (2004, 20H1, build 19041) or later. To find out which version of Windows you're running, please read this from Microsoft. Affinity V2 & .MSIX If you've purchased Affinity V2 for Windows directly from the Affinity Store, you will have downloaded an MSIX package. MSIX packages are a modern and reliable installation package which means install and uninstall issues are rare. You can read more about our decision to use MSIX here. However, if you run into issues when trying to install or uninstall Affinity V2, please try the below suggestions: Check you're not getting one of the below install errors: Error 0x80073D10 Error 0x80073CFD Error 0x80073CF3 App Installer failed to install package dependencies App didn't start Additional MSIX Error Codes Access is Denied (0X80070005): Please use PowerShell command below Opening the package from location failed: Please use PowerShell command below Cannot open app package - error In parsing the app package Sideloading is blocked by policy App Installer Download: If you don't have an app installed to open the .MSIX file you may need to download and install App Installer from the Microsoft Store here. Use PowerShell Instead: You can also install MSIX packages via PowerShell by opening PowerShell as Admin and then using the following command, presuming you have downloaded the MSIX to your Downloads folder: Add-AppxPackage -Path "C:\Users\MyUserName\Downloads\affinity-designer-2.0.3.msix" -DependencyPath "https://aka.ms/Microsoft.VCLibs.x64.14.00.Desktop.appx" Log Files If you're still having issues installing our apps and you're not getting one of the errors listed above, you can check the MSIX installation logs in Event Viewer by going to: Application and Services Logs > Microsoft > Windows > AppxDeployment-Server > Microsoft-Windows-AppXDeploymentServer/Operational App Fail to Uninstall Apps can be uninstall via Settings > Apps > Apps & Features but if that fails for whatever reason, you can try uninstalling via PowerShell using the following command: Remove-AppxPackage -Package "SerifEuropeLtd.AffinityPhoto2_2.0.0_x64__v5ap6qg21y3cg" You can use AppxPackage –AllUsers -Name *Affinity* Cmdlet in PowerShell to find the correct Package Name before running the above command.

If you've purchased Affinity V2 for Windows directly from the Affinity Store, you will have downloaded an MSIX package. You will notice when installing Affinity V2 you will not be offered the ability to change the installation path. This is expected and is down to how MSIX packages work. All Windows Apps are installed to the default drive set in Settings > System > Storage. There are two options to change where Affinity V2 is installed to: Temporarily change "Where new content is saved" by going to Settings > System > Storage > More / Advanced Storage Settings > Change where new contact is saved and select the required drive from the New apps will save to: dropdown menu. Once you've installed the app to the new drive, you can revert this setting back to Local Disk (C:) Move the app to a different drive once installed by going to Settings > Apps > Apps & Features selecting the Affinity App and clicking Move Please note: It's only possible to pick the drive where you want the app installed to but not the full location. Unfortunately, this is handled by Windows and cannot be changed by the user.

If you purchased Affinity V2 for Windows directly from the Affinity Store, you will have downloaded an MSIX package. You will notice when installing Affinity V2 you will not be offered the ability to create a Desktop shortcut. This is expected and is down to how MSIX packages work. However, you can manually create a desktop shortcut after installation. Go to Start > Run and enter Shell:AppsFolder and press OK - This will take you to a folder where you can drag and drop a copy of the Affinity V2 shortcut to your desktop.