Not able to start Affinity Photo 2 from DxO, XNViewMP, ART and Raw Therapee

[00maxx00]

3 hours ago, Wolfgang_AP said:

The solution with the *.bat file reminded me to DOS ...

Over time I've seen / done a lot of things, but to install AP2 by default into a 'save' folder / aera, where users have no access to, is plain silly !!

I don't like the choice to follow the app way too. I hope Serif will make soon an official patch to solve this, even if for now I can continue to work with RawTherapee and FastStone.

Edited November 11, 2022 by 00maxx00

[00maxx00]

16 minutes ago, LuNik700 said:

some application (like DXO Photo Lab) don't allow bat-files to be selected out of the box for exporting...

Hi Ludger.

If you type "*" and press enter when you are in the folder with the .bat file, you remove the filter that shows only .exe files. Then you can select the .bat file.

It's the same with FastStone Image Viewer and DXO Photolab - and every other sw that works the same way.

Edited November 11, 2022 by 00maxx00

[Patrick Connor]

4 minutes ago, LuNik700 said:

Hi Patrick,
could you please clearify whether the approach of just extracting the affinity-photo-2.0.0.msix to a folder of choice and after that just running photo.exe in the App subfolder is a valid solution in you eyes??? Are the any drawbacks doing so?

It is completely unsupported so I won't make any comments other than that

[LuNik700]

@Patrick Connor: Thanks for your statement!

@00maxx00: Thank you! I wrote "out of the box" and meant that this proceeding is not very intuitive!

Cheers
Ludger  

 

[rparry]

I was considering upgrading to V2 package (I have all three v1 software) but my experience with other Windows app installations will make me steer clear for now. The principal problem I have found is with security settings in the Windows apps folder restricting access. I don't see any advantage to the end user over the V1 installations other perhaps than to updates. No doubt Serif consider there are advantages for them but they will have to weigh those against loss of customer goodwill.

[AcrobaticMelon]

6 hours ago, cybertec69 said:

This is not acceptable. I don't have time for this hack nonsense. The file should be in my programs folder as Affinity 1 is, dxophotolab is, DaVinci Resolve is, and every other software that I have downloaded to my PC. 

It is in the Program Files folder under WindowsApps. MSIX is the Microsoft-recommended packaging solution that improves app sandboxing (security), installation reliability, and disk space utilisation. It's not a new technology either - it's been around since 2018.

If anything, it's the older software (DxO PhotoLab, etc) that you should be pushing to support a feature that's nearly half a decade old. I'd personally find it pretty funny if the batch file (or an EXE-converted version) ends up getting shipped as a fix for this issue because it works.

[krbo]

54 minutes ago, LuNik700 said:

Hi Patrick,
could you please clearify whether the approach of just extracting the affinity-photo-2.0.0.msix to a folder of choice and after that just running photo.exe in the App subfolder is a valid solution in you eyes??? Are the any drawbacks doing so?

In my option the solution with the batch starter is more complicated for people who are not so familiar with it and some application (like DXO Photo Lab) don't allow bat-files to be selected out of the box for exporting...

 

Best regards
Ludger

 

I will try to answer this.
Just extracting will work individualy for each app but we don't know are there any interdependencies between each app and windows (dll registration etc)
What is sure is that no other Serif app will be aware of others (as they are just unpacked to a location you randomly choose) so things like "Studio Link" will not work.
Some "windows like" updates may not work as apps are not where they should be.

It's just a hack to give you more comfortable work with your 3rd party software before system solution is done, if any (I strongly beleive Serif will do something)

Biggest problem is that Serif didn't perform wide customer public beta of version 2, all of this problems will be presented to them during that process.
There's nothing catastrophic happening, everyone can stil work with v1.

[Patrick Connor]

For those wanting to run PhotoPlus from within DAM applications please check this post

 

[cybertec69]

53 minutes ago, AcrobaticMelon said:

It is in the Program Files folder under WindowsApps. MSIX is the Microsoft-recommended packaging solution that improves app sandboxing (security), installation reliability, and disk space utilisation. It's not a new technology either - it's been around since 2018.

If anything, it's the older software (DxO PhotoLab, etc) that you should be pushing to support a feature that's nearly half a decade old. I'd personally find it pretty funny if the batch file (or an EXE-converted version) ends up getting shipped as a fix for this issue because it works.

Did you bother reading ANYTHING I posted. This is not a dxophotolab issue. And I am on W10. Not planning on installing W11 anytime soon. 

And this has NOTHING to do about app security. Another one that bought Microsoft's BS. 

[00maxx00]

57 minutes ago, Patrick Connor said:

For those wanting to run PhotoPlus from within DAM applications please check this post

 

I don't understand...why should anyone use this launcher instead of the .bat file? - I'm serious.

I read this launcher will have to be updated after every serif update, while the .bat will work forever (or at least until serif doesn't change the exe in the appdata\local\microsoft\windowsapp folder) and doesn't need to mess with authorizations. 

Edited November 11, 2022 by 00maxx00

[footeg]

2 hours ago, 00maxx00 said:

Hi Ludger.

If you type "*" and press enter when you are in the folder with the .bat file, you remove the filter that shows only .exe files. Then you can select the .bat file.

It's the same with FastStone Image Viewer and DXO Photolab - and every other sw that works the same way.

You deserve a medal. This worked a treat with ACDSee Ultimate Studio 2023 & DXO Photolab 5. Thanks for this hint.

[00maxx00]

Just now, footeg said:

You deserve a medal. This worked a treat with ACDSee Ultimate Studio 2023 & DXO Photolab 5. Thanks for this hint.

Truth be told, it's something I too learned on this forum yesterday 😀

Thanks anyway.

[JeffJ]

I'm also having issue with Affinity V2 and ACDSee Ultimate 2021.  Not interested in hacking this, been down that road...don't have the time.

Affinity selling a suite of creative tools that have seemless data transfer between suites, should comprehend the importance of 'external editor' connectivity between Affinity Photo and other editors.  My expectation is this gets fixed by Affinity.  I'm retired software analyst, spent most of my technical career developing CAD/CAM software for aerospace.  Also long time photographer, experienced user of digital image editors.  Last summer I tested Affinity Photo V1 against DxO, Capture One, Corel PSP, ON1.  Affinity performed well against their peer competitors in my testing.  Affinity has been a great platform for me, I'd really hate to transition to another tool set, but I need this external editor functionality to work, to access and work on my image assets from my DAM (ACDSee).  This is functionality that works in every other editor/viewer I've reviewed and tested.   I can work around this for now waiting for a fix.  I'll move on to a better tool for my workflow if it doesn't.  Thanks Affinity.

Tick tock...

JJ

[Greyfox]

The bat file work around also doesn't work from ACDSee Ultimate. It too requires an exe file.
I wish I had know about this before I purchased the Universal licence. My bad, I usually take advantage of the free trial, but in this instance I didn't.

Edit: OK, have now seen the post from footeg and that has got it working with the batch file.

On the other hand, the launcher doesn't work - Opens Photo but fails to open the image.

[Aktive Pupille]

16 hours ago, Patrick Connor said:

To others here: STOP these personal attacks on @cybertec69 help or say nothing.

Basically we have tried to help which, however, failed due to a certain kind of consulting resistance 🤐

[cybertec69]

4 hours ago, Greyfox said:

The bat file work around also doesn't work from ACDSee Ultimate. It too requires an exe file.
I wish I had know about this before I purchased the Universal licence. My bad, I usually take advantage of the free trial, but in this instance I didn't.

Edit: OK, have now seen the post from footeg and that has got it working with the batch file.

On the other hand, the launcher doesn't work - Opens Photo but fails to open the image.

You have 14 days from purchase for a complete refund. If this does not get resolved within the next 12 days for me I will ask for a refund. This was one botched release to say the least. This should have been on top of their checklist before releasing this software. Affinity 1 works like a charm and has been since I bought it five years ago, no reason why they had to release this mess. I believe this was foisted upon them by Microsoft with this app release nonsense. This has nothing to do with security, only about CONTROL by Microsoft.

[footeg]

5 hours ago, Greyfox said:

The bat file work around also doesn't work from ACDSee Ultimate. It too requires an exe file.
I wish I had know about this before I purchased the Universal licence. My bad, I usually take advantage of the free trial, but in this instance I didn't.

Edit: OK, have now seen the post from footeg and that has got it working with the batch file.

On the other hand, the launcher doesn't work - Opens Photo but fails to open the image.

Glad my post helped Greyfox. I am not having a problem with the image opening in Affinity V2 from ACDSee as you can see from this screen recording. This was using a raw file but I tried it with jpeg & tiff files & all the images opened ok. The video is in real time so, as you can see, it takes a few seconds to open the image in Affinity. This has been commented on in other posts & has been logged with the developers.

 

 

[Gregory St. Laurent]

This doesn't seem to be an issue with Windows 11 (from FastStone), but my 2 other Windows 10 machines had the issue. A heads up if people are having trouble with the batch file, check your anti virus. Avast was flagging the batch file and putting it in Quarantine every time I would launch it. Took me a little time to realize what was happening. I added an exception, now all is well.

[ekim cheel]

Thanks for the fix, Walt, it works for me and I do like a good batch file, takes me back to DOS days. Its all very well, as some here have said,  to say that it's down to the developers of other applications to keep them up to date, and for users to keep their installations up to date as well, but having worked in software for thirty years I can tell you thats just wishful thinking

And if a software revison breaks compatibilty with old software, it's the vendor of the new software that the customer will blame, rightly or wrongly, as I know all too well.....

Edited November 12, 2022 by ekim cheel
correction

[rsraz]

It sort of works from ON1 Raw photo except I can only pass 1 at a time. So still need to know how to transfer photos to the panoramic module instead of a single image to develop the module.

 

[Fabbio]

Sorry for my bad English.
Translated with DEEPL.
Launch Affinity Photo 2 via another application,
works with a little trick

Launch Affinity Photo 2,
Start Task Manager,
Select Affinity Photo 2 in the task manager,
right click,
open path,
copy path in Explorer.

Example DxO:
Open the window for selecting the *.exe,
Paste the copied path here,
now the Photo.exe can be selected.
Done

Here is a small tutorial video:
http://snap.ashampoo.com/zIu7xzQ2v6peo1GFW2cbD6fTNVaY8Nsx7PYonnTOfLQ4q247ZHF9q5ZL7MTW0oGF

Info

Uploaded: 12-Nov-2022
Expired: 10-Dec-2022
15.92 MB

[Mystical]

On 11/11/2022 at 6:38 AM, 00maxx00 said:

Hi Ludger.

If you type "*" and press enter when you are in the folder with the .bat file, you remove the filter that shows only .exe files. Then you can select the .bat file.

It's the same with FastStone Image Viewer and DXO Photolab - and every other sw that works the same way.

Unfortunately this method does not work with all software. If I try and choose a non-exe in 3D Coat as my external editor program it denies the file (Bat and shortcuts to photo 2). Likewise if I choose the windows app Photo 2 exe located in: WindowsApps\SerifEuropeLtd.AffinityPhoto2_2.0.0.1640_x64__3cqzy0nppv2rt\App the program never launches.

So for now I am stuck using Photo 1.0 still as my external layer exporter from 3D Coat until the Photo 2 exe can somehow be recognized as a normal program exe.

[Patrick Connor]

@Fabbio + @rsraz

Welcome to the Serif Affinity forums

Fabbio

Although this seems to help the method you showing only a temporary work around. It will need redoing every time the software updates/patches because the path of MSIX installs includes the version number. It will others help until we release a better technical solution 

[Dangerous]

On 11/10/2022 at 2:31 PM, Hans De Smaele said:

 

start /b affinityphoto2.exe %1
exit

 

If you use /min the cmd window runs minimised to the taskbar. The /b did nothing for me. also if you use BAT2EXE it will make an exe if the program you use will not allow the use of a bat file.

The Bat file I use

start /min cmd /c affinityphoto2.exe %1

exit

[Patrick Connor]

This news will also help some in this thread