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


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9 hours ago, rvst said:

I made a script that fixes this MSIX installer sandbox nonsense. If you can't wait for Affinity to fix it then you can find the script here

 

 

I have hidden that post. The advice is not only going to make your software unsupported but also everyone who uses it fail to get future updates.

I appreciate your intentions were good but the consequences of using that approach are very difficult to undo, as we discovered in testing 

Please can you not repost it.

(Note this post has been edited to remove my panic first reaction)

Edited by Patrick Connor
Removed earlier reaction

Patrick Connor
Serif Europe Ltd

"There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man. True nobility lies in being superior to your previous self."  W. L. Sheldon

 

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3 hours ago, Terry44 said:


This works for me from both command prompt and powershell in Windows 10 with and without quotes around the file location.

 

affinityphoto2 "d:\images\happy.jpg" "d:\images\sad.jpg"  "d:\images\dance.jpg"  

 

And
 

affinityphoto2.exe "d:\images\happy.jpg" "d:\images\sad.jpg"  "d:\images\dance.jpg"

affinitydesigner2 "d:\images\happy.jpg" "d:\images\sad.jpg"  "d:\images\dance.jpg"

affinitypdesigner2.exe "d:\images\happy.jpg" "d:\images\sad.jpg"  "d:\images\dance.jpg"

 

You are right, that works. I had only tried to add it to the properties of the desktop shortcut.

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14 hours ago, julienpierre said:

I'm glad i tried because i kept my money in my pocket. Went back to v1.10 and illustator. Why devs make this kind of changes is beyond me...

I'm glad I spent the money to upgrade for all the extra features and improvements. I don't need the space yet so will just leave Ver 1 on the pc and not use it again unless I have a problem only Ver 1 can fix.

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It struck me that this is just moving the support burden. People can’t do the things they expect the installer to do out of the box and they have to go through a lot of workarounds to get a sensible system. They don’t get icons, they don’t get file associations, they can’t choose where to put the application, and it doesn’t integrate into their workflows. The fact this has workarounds is irrelevant. The fact that workarounds are needed inconveniences users and moves the support burden… but support can answer the questions more easily so maybe it’s reduced overall? I wouldn’t like to say, but it’s not an experiment I would conduct on my user base.

I think this move was made with good intentions, although, being charitable, I feel the technical arguments are flawed.

My feeling is Affinity made a mistake, but I want to support a British company, and I like their overall philosophy. I will continue to support them, and in the end, I paid for the product. I’m not installing it though. I can’t be bothered to faff around with all these workarounds to get a working system again, and I hope we see a solutions soon.

I don’t care whether it’s an MSIX or not. What I care about is whether the installer sets up the system, or whether it makes a partial attempt and then leaves the user to pick up the pieces. It seems we currently have the latter.

 

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12 minutes ago, AndrewJJP said:

It struck me that this is just moving the support burden. People can’t do the things they expect the installer to do out of the box and they have to go through a lot of workarounds to get a sensible system. They don’t get icons, they don’t get file associations, they can’t choose where to put the application, and it doesn’t integrate into their workflows. The fact this has workarounds is irrelevant. The fact that workarounds are needed inconveniences users and moves the support burden… but support can answer the questions more easily so maybe it’s reduced overall? I wouldn’t like to say, but it’s not an experiment I would conduct on my user base.

I think this move was made with good intentions, although, being charitable, I feel the technical arguments are flawed.

My feeling is Affinity made a mistake, but I want to support a British company, and I like their overall philosophy. I will continue to support them, and in the end, I paid for the product. I’m not installing it though. I can’t be bothered to faff around with all these workarounds to get a working system again, and I hope we see a solutions soon.

I don’t care whether it’s an MSIX or not. What I care about is whether the installer sets up the system, or whether it makes a partial attempt and then leaves the user to pick up the pieces. It seems we currently have the latter.

 

I completely agree with them.  I bought the universal licence blindly because I was convinced of Serif and their products and price and update policy. The price is still ok. But I still applied for the refund. I hope that if many do it, it will lead to a rethink at Serif and they will provide an MSI installer as an option. Then I will buy the Suite again. 

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On 11/9/2022 at 6:18 PM, Zero Zero said:

.....in the meantime after much faffing about through the Forum I discovered to my dismay that these are "App" files and do not install into the Program folder of my C drive and do not appear in my Programs & Features... How do I uninstall them?

Please Serif fix this unwanted installation mess asap. and please retain some independence from the dumbing-down that Micro$oft continually applies to Windows in the so-called attempt to make it better.

I agree, really silly, this MIcrosoft appism, just complicates things! Serif please rudder back from that or give 2 options to choose from.

I am pondering to upgrade both all Affinity programs and the animation software, Reallusion's Cartoon Animator.

Now I find that I cannot assign Affinity Photo or Affinity Designer as default programs from within Cartoon Animator. I can only do this with my Affinity programs latest version before version 2. ...........

Has anyone got a solution for this specific requirement? I would be grateful to hear of it. If I cannot solve the problem I will NOT upgrade (neither Affinity nor Cartoon Animator).....

 

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1 hour ago, ryobg said:

omg, please allow sane/normal shortcut access! I want to launch Affinity with parameters and from other apps, script launching and etc. This is ridiculous.

It can be done if you launch program can launch a .bat file. The 2 dam programs I use can launch .bat so I can use drag & drop (if AP open) or launch to open AP & the file.

 

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...and as we keep stating we are going to try to address in an update or as a simple distributable shortcut EXE

Patrick Connor
Serif Europe Ltd

"There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man. True nobility lies in being superior to your previous self."  W. L. Sheldon

 

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4 minutes ago, Patrick Connor said:

...and as we keep stating we are going to try to address in an update or as a simple distributable shortcut EXE

When you do this can you add icons to them?  The current exe links have no icons and the files are 0 bytes, just a direct link to wherever the actual executables are.  I had to create my own.  If you can with the new icons.. make them say V2 or something so I don't mistake them for the affinity version 1 links.

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1 hour ago, ryobg said:

omg, please allow sane/normal shortcut access! I want to launch Affinity with parameters and from other apps, script launching and etc. This is ridiculous.


This might not help but in Windows 10, if you create a shortcut to the affinityPROGRAMNAME2.exe link you can send multiple files to the program and they will open in whichever program you are linking to.

 

affinityphoto2.exe "d:\images\test 1 2 3.jpg"  "d:\images\test123.jpg" "d:\images\test 3 2 1.jpg"

affinitydesigner2.exe "d:\images\test 1 2 3.jpg"  "d:\images\test123.jpg" "d:\images\test 3 2 1.jpg"

don't need the exe at the end of the program, optional.


Edit:  I added spaces in the file names example above to test if spaces in file path would work, seems to work as long as you quote it.

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8 minutes ago, Terry44 said:

When you do this can you add icons to them? 

Yup

Patrick Connor
Serif Europe Ltd

"There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man. True nobility lies in being superior to your previous self."  W. L. Sheldon

 

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I have just requested a refund.

There is already enough tyranny imposed on people in the world, I don't respect software companies that enforce this approach on their customers, it's not acceptable. At this point I no longer care if Serif issue .exe files and offer a formal apology. The damage is done already.

In addition I find the changes introduced into V2 underwhelming and I am quite happy to continue using V1 which already fulfils my needs very nicely.

I hope Serif learns some humility from this serious error of judgement.

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1 hour ago, Patrick Connor said:

...and as we keep stating we are going to try to address in an update or as a simple distributable shortcut EXE

I think this is good news. Affinity knows the change has had caused unfortunate problems, and they are going to make things easier.

I think it’s a bit premature to request a refund. I looked at some alternatives yesterday, and Affinity is still by far the best option for me. Thanks for the hard work guys. You have my sympathies at what must be an insanely busy time. 

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While I would have preferred it to be a 'normal' installation I don't see a problem it being an app as it is still fully functioning. Yes I had to do a bit extra work so my my external programs can open AP and load the selected image. It was my choice to set up my dams that way rather than just the normal drag & drop which I still use sometime and still work perfectly. I can still add shortcuts to the desktop if I want to clutter it with shortcuts but I don't, some program installs don't ask, they just clutter the desktop and all I do is remove the shortcut. It isn't a big deal and certainly not a deal breaker.

 

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Like someone here was saying, there is "enough tyranny imposed on people in the world”, and reading the last news about the changing in Affinity politics, I’m feeling BETRAYED by you, Affinity! All that your talk, in the beginning, about Adobe and how you were different with just one time purchase, regular updates... Shame on you... Now you talk about V2! And that’s it!

Your problem was not being sincere at the beginning, now you lost my confidence. Nothing to say to you, anymore! Bye!

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I started to use these "Aliases" mentioned instead, which is good enough workaround. Still, that change was inconvenience. I'm not convinced of the benefits of just simple exe installer as most other apps do and live fine enough to be used. Microsoft and similar will always try to sell you some new "good" tech to use, is frequently just a junk.

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4 hours ago, Patrick Connor said:

I have hidden that post. The advice is not only going to make your software unsupported but also everyone who uses it fail to get future updates.

I appreciate your intentions were good but the consequences of using that approach are very difficult to undo, as we discovered in testing 

Please can you not repost it.

(Note this post has been edited to remove my panic first reaction)

Patrick, could you please explain why the "consequences of using that approach are difficult to undo" and what your testing revealed?

Theoretically these extra permissions should be benign (I've been writing Windows code for decades already), so I'll admit to being more than a little surprised by this remark. Feel free to respond in DM if you prefer

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7 minutes ago, pintoamaralricardo said:

I’m feeling BETRAYED by you, Affinity! All that your talk, in the beginning, about Adobe and how you were different with just one time purchase, regular updates...

Sorry to hear you feel this way, but V2 was always planned as a paid-for upgrade and we have not been shy about this information for many years now.

Please see the below post, which show this is information that has been publicly available on our forums, Affinity site and reiterated via email since at least 2018 -

Please Note: I am now out of the office until Tuesday 2nd April on annual leave.

If you require urgent assistance, please create a new thread and a member of our team will be sure to assist asap.

Many thanks :)

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11 minutes ago, rvst said:

Patrick, could you please explain why the "consequences of using that approach are difficult to undo" and what your testing revealed?

Theoretically these extra permissions should be benign (I've been writing Windows code for decades already), so I'll admit to being more than a little surprised by this remark. Feel free to respond in DM if you prefer

If @Patrick Connor is referring to the comment I think he is it involved a completely new install in another directory so come update time the Serif update routine would not update it. Even the poster accepted that future updates could mean having to redo the hack every update which would defeat the object.

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2 minutes ago, Dangerous said:

If @Patrick Connor is referring to the comment I think he is it involved a completely new install in another directory so come update time the Serif update routine would not update it. Even the poster accepted that future updates could mean having to redo the hack every update which would defeat the object.

I am the original poster. No, the script does not change the install location - it just adds more permissive permissions without changing the original file ownership or removing the original permissions. 

Yes, a future update would install new versions of files in the same location that have the original more restrictive permissions and therefore the more permissive permissions would need to be applied again. But that's a simple case of running the script again after an update. Personally, I find that a minor imposition compared to continuing to work with a sandboxed app.

I see no technical reason why this should lead even to update problems. Hence why I requested a technical explanation from Patrick why he considers it a bad idea, because that's totally not apparent to me. 

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