Extremely disappointed that this installs as an "App" and not regular software program

[yaywalter]

1 minute ago, ChrisON said:

That doesn't work for DXO - you have to specify a path to the .exe. I don't want to use Affinity's raw developer because DXO has much better noise reduction and lens correction.

This is so frustrating - I intend to report this as a bug: unless someone already has? I don't really want to go down the refund path as l really do like Affinity Photo and have no desire to return to Adobe's subscription system.

Chris

 

It won't let you just put affinityphoto2.exe as the path?

[Mystical]

1 hour ago, ChrisON said:

Same problem with DXO Photolab - can no longer export a developed raw file directly to Affinity. Big step backward for me. If there is no workaround for this I'll probably get the refund within the 14 day window and find something else to use.

 

Chris

 

 

Similar issue for me with a program called 3D Coat where I regularly export all the layers to an external paint program which was Photo 1.0

 

While I added the Photo 2 exe as my new external export editor for layers it literally does nothing now when I choose to export. Its like Photo 2 being a Windows App in that directory blocks everything and not sure how I can fix it so I have to keep using Photo 1.0 for now, save the file in Photo 1.0, close Photo 1.0, then open it in Photo 2.

[ChrisON]

5 minutes ago, yaywalter said:

It won't let you just put affinityphoto2.exe as the path?

No, this is the dialog box in PL for exporting to an app - you have to browse to get to the app - so for V1 of Affinity l would just go to the Program Files/Affinity folder and select the .exe

 

Chris

 

 

 

[carl123]

1 hour ago, ChrisON said:

If l browse to C:\Users\[MyUsername]\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps and double click AffinityPhoto2.exe then AP starts OK. However if l browse to that file via DXO Photolab l get the "The file cannot be accessed by the system" error. Same problem runing PL as administrator. This, as yaywalter suggests, sounds like a permissions problem even though permissions on the file show as my user id and Adminstrators (which my id is) have full control.

Chris

Have you tried the other path to "photo.exe" not AffinityPhoto2.exe

(as in the link I pointed to)

 

[ChrisON]

Seems this has been acknowledged as a problem by Serif - this was in another thread in this forum - watch this space l guess....

 

Chris

 

 

 

Edited November 10, 2022 by ChrisON

[David in Яuislip]

1 hour ago, ChrisON said:

That doesn't work for DXO

No but this does

Go to
%LocalAppData%\Microsoft\WindowsApps\
and you'll see AffinityPhoto2.exe which is the Alias(broken?) for the true executable

Generate a bat file containing
start affinityphoto2.exe %1
exit

Setup a link in Photolab like this

[Danel]

Well, the solution of creating a .bat file with the app launch in text works well for switching a raw from Faststone to Affinity... However, there is no indication that the raw is actually being processed and this processing takes a long time.
Overall, in my initial tests, I found this version to be very unresponsive to settings.
No need to make so much cinema for a badly finished product.
Where is the time when IT was serious and it would never have occurred to a company to present an unfinished job.
 

[ChrisON]

Hi David,

No, that doesn't work as PL insists on a full path to the .exe file. The .bat file you suggested works but you still can't link it successfully in PL - unless I'm missing something obvious.

I'm using Windows 11 and PL 6: the C:\Program Files\WindowsApps folder - where the 'real' photo.exe resides is locked down - you can't even browse to it successfully - only way l could find it was via Task Manager and open the file location for the Affinity Photo process (Affinity has to be running to do this).

Chris

 

[carl123]

3 minutes ago, Danel said:

Overall, in my initial tests, I found this version to be very unresponsive to settings.

Not sure exactly what you mean

But some people have noticed that hardware acceleration had been switched back on in V2

If you had it off before you may want to try again with it off

[David in Яuislip]

46 minutes ago, ChrisON said:

The .bat file you suggested works but you still can't link it successfully in PL

 Do you mean that the bat file launches APhoto2 ok but that it doesn't get called by PhotoLab?
 I find that PhotoLab will produce a file of the selected type in the source directory then pass that to APhoto2
 Here I've produced dng, jpg & tiff and they all worked ok

 You should find the link to the bat file in Photolab's user.config file. Here's an extract from mine which shows the link - 7th line down

 <DxO.PhotoLab.Export.OpenWith.Properties.Settings>
      <setting name="ExportSettings" serializeAs="String">
        <value>&lt;OpenWithSession xmlns="http://schemas.datacontract.org/2004/07/DxO.PhotoLab.Export.OpenWith.Session" xmlns:i="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"&gt;&lt;Application i:type="a:Application" xmlns="http://schemas.datacontract.org/2004/07/DxO.OpticsPro.Export.OpenWith.Session" xmlns:a="http://schemas.datacontract.org/2004/07/DxO.OpticsPro.DopCommon"&gt;&lt;a:FileName&gt;c:\users\davidchill\appdata\local\microsoft\windowsapps\aphoto2.bat&lt;/a:FileName&gt;&lt;a:LastUsage&gt;2022-11-10T14:33:45.9300972Z&lt;/a:LastUsage&gt;&lt;a:Version i:nil="true" xmlns:b="http://schemas.datacontract.org/2004/07/System"/&gt;&lt;/Application&gt;&lt;ExportOriginalImages xmlns="http://schemas.datacontract.org/2004/07/DxO.OpticsPro.Export.OpenWith.Session"&gt;false&lt;/ExportOriginalImages&gt;&lt;OutputSettings i:type="a:FileOutputSettings" xmlns="http://schemas.datacontract.org/2004/07/DxO.OpticsPro.Export.OpenWith.Session" xmlns:a="http://schemas.datacontract.org/2004/07/DxO.OpticsPro.OutputSettings"&gt;&lt;a:AllowResampling&gt;false&lt;/a:AllowResampling&gt;&lt;a:CanDisable&gt;true&lt;/a:CanDisable&gt;&lt;a:CustomIccProfile&gt;C:\Windows\System32\spool\drivers\color\sRGB Color Space Profile.icm&lt;/a:CustomIccProfile&gt;&lt;a:CustomResolution&gt;72&lt;/a:CustomResolution&gt;&lt;a:DestinationFolder/&gt;&lt;a:DestinationIsOriginalFolder&gt;true&lt;/a:DestinationIsOriginalFolder&gt;&lt;a:Enabled&gt;true&lt;/a:Enabled&gt;&lt;a:FormatType&gt;Tiff&lt;/a:FormatType&gt;&lt;a:FullOutputPath/&gt;&lt;a:GenerateTemporaryFile&gt;false&lt;/a:GenerateTemporaryFile&gt;&lt;a:IccProfile&gt;Custom&lt;/a:IccProfile&gt;&lt;a:Id&gt;8b655d69-22f4-41e4-9948-9e0501904424&lt;/a:Id&gt;&lt;a:InterpolationType&gt;Bicubic&lt;/a:InterpolationType&gt;&lt;a:JpegQuality&gt;90&lt;/a:JpegQuality&gt;&lt;a:MetadataTypes&gt;All&lt;/a:MetadataTypes&gt;&lt;a:OutputHeight&gt;1024&lt;/a:OutputHeight&gt;&lt;a:OutputName&gt;aphoto2 (10/11/2022 14:35:55)&lt;/a:OutputName&gt;&lt;a:OutputPixelsCount&gt;2&lt;/a:OutputPixelsCount&gt;&lt;a:OutputPreviousSizeUnit&gt;Pixels&lt;/a:OutputPreviousSizeUnit&gt;&lt;a:OutputScaleFactor&gt;100&lt;/a:OutputScaleFactor&gt;&lt;a:OutputSize&gt;1024&lt;/a:OutputSize&gt;&lt;a:OutputSizeUnit&gt;Pixels&lt;/a:OutputSizeUnit&gt;&lt;a:OutputWidth&gt;1024&lt;/a:OutputWidth&gt;&lt;a:OverrideWatermark&gt;false&lt;/a:OverrideWatermark&gt;&lt;a:OverwriteOutputFile&gt;false&lt;/a:OverwriteOutputFile&gt;&lt;a:RawSuffix&gt;_raw&lt;/a:RawSuffix&gt;&lt;a:RenderingIntent&gt;Perceptual&lt;/a:RenderingIntent&gt;&lt;a:ResizingMode&gt;LongestSide&lt;/a:ResizingMode&gt;&lt;a:ResolutionUnit&gt;dpi&lt;/a:ResolutionUnit&gt;&lt;a:RgbSuffix/&gt;&lt;a:Sharpness i:nil="true"/&gt;&lt;a:Suffix&gt;_DxO&lt;/a:Suffix&gt;&lt;a:SuffixForSnaphot/&gt;&lt;a:TemporaryFileSuffix&gt;tmp&lt;/a:TemporaryFileSuffix&gt;&lt;a:Tiff8Bits&gt;true&lt;/a:Tiff8Bits&gt;&lt;a:TiffCompression&gt;true&lt;/a:TiffCompression&gt;&lt;a:UseRawOrRgbSuffix&gt;false&lt;/a:UseRawOrRgbSuffix&gt;&lt;a:UseUniqueNaming&gt;false&lt;/a:UseUniqueNaming&gt;&lt;a:UseVirtualCopySuffix&gt;false&lt;/a:UseVirtualCopySuffix&gt;&lt;a:WatermarkPreset&gt;00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000&lt;/a:WatermarkPreset&gt;&lt;/OutputSettings&gt;&lt;/OpenWithSession&gt;</value>
      </setting>

 

[lphilpot]

1 hour ago, Danel said:

Well, the solution of creating a .bat file with the app launch in text works well for switching a raw from Faststone to Affinity... However, there is no indication that the raw is actually being processed and this processing takes a long time.

For me on Windows 11, Faststone 7.7 invokes Photo with a path directly to the executable under WindowsApps, I've not had to use a batch file yet.

There's one very minor (and almost certainly historical only) point that should be totally transparent, but who knows... *.bat files invoked command.com, which was a single-segment (DOS) com file, not an exe. *.cmd files invoke cmd.exe, which is the current Windows shell (has been for years). These days there's no command.com at all and *.bat files trigger cmd.exe anyway. But is there a bug lurking in there somewhere? Who knows. Not likely, but theoretically possible I guess. I long ago made it a practice to write *.cmd files, not *.bat. Same file, different extension.

I agree that Photo 2 seems to take a long time to load a raw file, in my case 24mp CR3 files. My laptop isn't a graphics horse (8 cores, 16GB RAM) but the longer load time is noticeable. It's no real factor for me since I use other free, and far more powerful, raw editors but I noticed it right away.

[PeePee]

Like zero zero I was frustrated at first with loading the suite, but once I realised it was 'an app' I navigated to my apps via the start button (bottom left of screen), located each of the three affinity 'apps' clicked and dropped them onto my desktop...and they load just fine now. Looking forward to learning a lot more about affinity now I've taken the plunge to buy it.

[Ian-]

Quote

2 hours ago, David in Яuislip said:

No but this does

Go to
%LocalAppData%\Microsoft\WindowsApps\
and you'll see AffinityPhoto2.exe which is the Alias(broken?) for the true executable

Generate a bat file containing
start affinityphoto2.exe %1
exit

Setup a link in Photolab like this

 

Hi David

How do you get access to the folder to be able to paste the bat file there?

[lphilpot]

4 minutes ago, Ian- said:

How do you get access to the folder to be able to paste the bat file there?

That's under your local user profile (%LocalAppData%). You should have access.

[François R]

This can't be new to Serif, I remember a guy that purchased a program from the Microsoft Store years ago and repurchased it as a regular program to make it work with tons of software on his PC.

I remember the issue exactly as described above; it was just impossible to add a static path to this program in all the other programs he used it with. The path to the app was changed every time an updated was performed.

If you have used Microsoft Windows more than just a few years you KNOW that Windows is tons of legacy, compatiblity and old methods still in use. If your software is expected to work with other programs, you have to stick to older methods.

Major blunder by Serif. What they can do, however, is to install launcher apps with a static path somehere outside this Windowsapps folder. I hope.

Personally I am going to use the apps on a mac 80% of the time; if the app issues are real and not resolved then the version 2 apps are out of my workflow on the mac, and then my total workflow is partly broken. That could be a deal breaker. 

Edited November 10, 2022 by François R

[jimh12345]

I'd been using Windows' built-in Ransomware Protection - it denies write access to executables until you approve them.  And V2 broke that, with this new installation scheme.  I'm trying to figure out how to specify the path to the new executable, but if that path keeps changing, it will be a PITA.   

 

Looks like the developers were pulled in by the Microsoft siren song of "here's our new way to do things, you need to need on board",  and as a former developer I know just how that works.  I suggest going back to a standard application installation, if only because this is going to be an endless source of confusion and a drain on Serif's support people.

[Komatös]

Create a text file for each Affinity V2 programme and insert the following data, after saving the .txt file change the extension .txt to .bat.

You can save the batch files on the desktop or in the document folder.

For AffinityPhoto2.txt
start affinityphoto2.exe %1
exit

For AffinityDesigner2.txt
start affinitydesigner2.exe %1
exit

For the sake of simplicity I have attached the batch files.

 

AffinityDesigner2.bat AffinityPhoto2.bat

[Mark Ingram]

20 hours ago, François R said:

Major blunder by Serif. What they can do, however, is to install launcher apps with a static path somehere outside this Windowsapps folder. I hope.

We already have app execution aliases installed to:

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

Please replace username with your Windows username. Also, those paths are already in your %PATH% variable so you can launch them without even specifying the full path, e.g. AffinityPhoto2.exe.

[SpiffinJay]

22 minutes ago, Mark Ingram said:

We already have app execution aliases installed to:

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

You can call those from the command line or from other applications.

Isnt there currently some sort of issues with those aliases. I hope you can fix those issues some people seem to be having with those aliases currently.

Edited November 10, 2022 by SpiffinJay

[Mark Ingram]

Just now, SpiffinJay said:

Isnt there currently some sort of issues with those aliases. I hope you can fix those issues some people seem to be having with those aliases currently.

Windows creates these aliases on our behalf, so I believe the issues are with the applications attempting to launch them. RawTherapee, for example, works fine with the aliases, along with many other applications that we tried.

[Mareg]

My opinion:

I'm also not a friend of this Windows APP sh......

When I buy a software outside of the Windows Store, I expect a normal adjustable software setup and not the APP slavery, which installs on my hard drive as it wants.

Dissapointing move, Guys

[SpiffinJay]

4 minutes ago, Mark Ingram said:

Windows creates these aliases on our behalf, so I believe the issues are with the applications attempting to launch them. RawTherapee, for example, works fine with the aliases, along with many other applications that we tried.

that makes sense if they try to do something unexpected with the alias which they shouldnt do so propably their implementations are done in a non compliant way or they look at the alias and go directly to what is aliased which the sandboxing wont allow to be executed. just a hunch

[MattT]

6 hours ago, ChrisON said:

This is so frustrating - I intend to report this as a bug: unless someone already has?

When you encounter a bug, report it whether someone else has or not. More bug reports --> higher priority. And also, more info about different user systems that can help pin down the problem.

[jimh12345]

4 hours ago, carl123 said:

Not sure exactly what you mean

But some people have noticed that hardware acceleration had been switched back on in V2

If you had it off before you may want to try again with it off

Yes, V2 was initially crashing right and left until I realized hardware acceleration was back 'on'.   I'd disabled it in V1.   Really, I wish acceleration would work...

[JimInFlorida]

56 minutes ago, Mark Ingram said:

We already have app execution aliases installed to:

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

You can call those from the command line or from other applications.

Those aliases give me the same error 'The parameter is incorrect' that I get when going through the install (over 2 dozen times now, all 3 apps) when it fails.  I had someone  (Lee) from support via email for a bit but he must have gone on to other issues he could resolve.

 

About to give up and wait a few months.  I thought since Affinity was making a big deal out of this 'UPGRADE' it would have been good to go.

I'll be going the refund route soon.