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Where is the Affinity 2 executable file?


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14 minutes ago, ianmac said:

I am aware of workarounds from Serif in short term but I'm running Windows 10

The aflaunch.exe method should work for you. When you tried it, what happened?

 

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
    Laptop 2: Windows 11 Pro 24H2,  16GB memory, Snapdragon(R) X Elite - X1E80100 - Qualcomm(R) Oryon(TM) 12 Core CPU 4.01 GHz, Qualcomm(R) Adreno(TM) X1-85 GPU
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 18.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sequoia 15.0.1

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1 hour ago, walt.farrell said:

The aflaunch.exe method should work for you. When you tried it, what happened?

 

This is our long term solution for anyone using the standard/current Installation (MSIX). I am keen to know who this doesn't work for. AFLauncher.exe should work with all DAM applications, and the one we end up officially offering will be very similar to the one in the forum attachment but with a suitable icon for Affinity Photo 2 

That doesn't mean that people won't be able to use the older style MSI install but that particularly help those who want more control over the Installation location (and as a side effect call the exe directly.

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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If the proxy exe, which is a zero byte exe, doesn’t work when calling from the application you are using please notify that applications technical support as it is a part of the windows system.

For example, ON1 products don’t work with this system but they are looking at updating ON1 Photo RAW to support zero byte exe’s. At this point in time Capture One does work and picks up the proxy in its plug-in list.

Obviously older applications that don’t work with proxies you will need to use alternate ways of calling. 

So my suggestion is that you use the alternate ways described on this forum and ask your application provider, e.g. like DxO or RAW Therapee or image viewer apps like XnView, to update their apps to support Windows features.

Both PC’s Win 11 x64 System
PC1 ASUS ROG Strix - AMD Ryzen 9 6900X CPU @ 3.3GHz. 32GB RAM

- GPU 1: AMD Radeon integrated. GPU 2: NVIDIA RTX 3060, 6GB
PC2 ASUS ProArt  PZ13 - Snapdragon X Plus X1P42100 (8 CPUs), 16GB RAM
- Neural Processor - Qualcomm® Hexagon™ NPU up to 45TOPS 

- GPU 1: Qualcomm Adreno Graphics, 

 

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On 12/5/2022 at 4:51 AM, Sonny Sonny said:

Here you goimage.png.e77376cc460346cb27e8fd611f2b1f1f.png

Hi, I have tried to use AffinityPhoto2.exe as described above but with both Adobe Bridge 2023 and Xnview 1.3.1 I get a popup saying "The file cannot be accessed by the system"

Any ideas? Thanks.

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1 hour ago, Harry21 said:

Any ideas? Thanks.

Try the aflaunch.exe, from the second post in the FAQ: 

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/167828-accessing-affinity-v2-apps-from-other-apps/ 

 

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
    Laptop 2: Windows 11 Pro 24H2,  16GB memory, Snapdragon(R) X Elite - X1E80100 - Qualcomm(R) Oryon(TM) 12 Core CPU 4.01 GHz, Qualcomm(R) Adreno(TM) X1-85 GPU
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 18.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sequoia 15.0.1

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Quote

Serif: There are bugs in some third-party applications with the App Execution Alias

3 hours ago, Harry21 said:

Hi, I have tried to use AffinityPhoto2.exe as described above but with both Adobe Bridge 2023 and Xnview 1.3.1 I get a popup saying "The file cannot be accessed by the system"

"Some third-party applications" ?? Even the Microsoft Windows 11 redesigned and quite modern "open with" dialog throws this error so the "app execution alias" (business bullshit for symbolic link) is certainly not ready for any kind of prime time. 

Microsoft fumbles around in the kitchen with old and new ingredients, trying to concoct a new concept disguised as new technology. Beware of becoming first crash test dummies. Customers lose and your company reputation takes a clear hit. Let Microsoft test their own half-baked products on their own customers.

Regular installers are just around the corner, so no panic. 🙂

 1) You have completely wrecked the layers panel, Serif.

2) I recommend Reddit groups instead of this forum. Not the same few bot-like users replying to everything, a wider representation of users, fewer fanboys, more qualified users. In short, better!

3) I was here to report bugs and submit improvement requests for professional work professionally in a large setup and to bring a lot of knowledge from the world, i.e. professional product development, web- and software development, usability, user experience design and accessibility. I actually know what I am talking about!

BUT! We are phasing out Designer and Affinity in 2022 Q1 - and replacing it with feature complete and algorithmically competent alternatives.
Publisher is unsuitable for serious use, and was never adopted.

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Thanks Walt and Francois. I will wait for the installer update as suggested. I had only reported the one method but had already tried others having gone through many other posts / threads on the subject.

I've had Affinity Photo for 6 years having dumped CS6 when that went rentable. I was worried about V2 because I have numerous Actions I have saved in the Library and use in Batch Jobs sometimes running hundreds of files. Glad to find that V2 did find all these :- ) I had to rewrite some Studio Presets and Preferences but that was no big deal. I use Capture One V22 for most of my editing, especially now that it does healing and cloning on layers etc but may well use Affinity much more if the Capture One new terms turn out as silly as they appear to be.

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Ah, just found this link from moderator Patrick Connor, thanks.
https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/171826-why-are-we-using-msix-for-windows-installers/

I unzipped the aflaunch zip and put it in the same folder as that where I store all my various downloadable apps including a folder for Affinity Photo. I associated this with Adobe Bridge 2023 plus 2022 and now it works fine :- ) Tried with Xnview as well for good measure and that works fine with both Open With: Launcher and Open With: Associated Program

open AF V2.jpg

Edited by Harry21
correction
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  • 3 weeks later...

I'm using windows 11.

The executable is at C:\Users\[USERNAME]\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps\AffinityPhoto2.exe

The file extension may or may not be visible depending on your file explorer settings.

Unfortunately I couldn't point directly to the executable... I got the following message... "The file cannot be accessed by the system."

To work around this I created a shortcut and placed it on my desktop. It doesn't have a pretty icon, but you can give it one if you care.

Rename the file if necessary (remember to keep the .exe extension)

You should be able to add the shortcut to your favourite launcher (ACDSee in my case).

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Thanks Jhunt68. I had tried that method previously as it was described in a previous thread but it did not work because for some reason I cannot recall it could not be accessed. However I tried it again just now and that worked fine. Maybe the update to V2 (2.0.3) which was released a few days ago sorted it out.

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2 hours ago, Photpekonio said:

The af launch.exe is not a solution.It does not work wit my new Wacom Intous Pro. It needs a executable. I tried it but for Wacom the program does not exist.

You need to first run Photo 2 (2.0.3), so that it is "in memory". I believe you need to set Photo.exe by picking it from the list "currently open" or "currently running", once you did hit the "+" button, in the application row of the Wacom panel. Well, that's how I do it and works here.

This works also for other situations, noit only for the tablet app profiles.

AD, AP and APub V2.5.x. Windows 10 and Windows 11. 
 

 

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2 hours ago, Photpekonio said:

The af launch.exe is not a solution.It does not work wit my new Wacom Intous Pro. It needs a executable. I tried it but for Wacom the program does not exist.

So :

1) First, RUN Photo 2 (2.0.3, better). By double clicking the icon in desktop or in the start menu, however you have it. Let it running.

2) Add the app profile in your Wacom panel, as I suppose you usually do.

add-wacom-1.png.a64bed28416a7ed163dd11e69669cb9b.png

3) Now you need to add Photo but not by clicking the "browse" button, but picking it from the list above "currently running apps", or however it says it in your system's language. Click OK. And that's it. Now you can configure the app's Wacom settings as usual.

add-wacom-2.png.34b08ec5f935e45dd68f7ff504379ba4.png

 

I hope it helps.

AD, AP and APub V2.5.x. Windows 10 and Windows 11. 
 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 12/26/2022 at 3:19 PM, Jhunt68 said:

I'm using windows 11.

The executable is at C:\Users\[USERNAME]\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps\AffinityPhoto2.exe

The file extension may or may not be visible depending on your file explorer settings.

Unfortunately I couldn't point directly to the executable... I got the following message... "The file cannot be accessed by the system."

To work around this I created a shortcut and placed it on my desktop. It doesn't have a pretty icon, but you can give it one if you care.

Rename the file if necessary (remember to keep the .exe extension)

You should be able to add the shortcut to your favourite launcher (ACDSee in my case).

This worked for me, a painless process, thanks. I put the shortcut in a folder associated with Affinity in the user section of my C drive, so as to keep clutter off my desktop. FYI, before using this solution I have found that dragging thumbnails from ACDSee's photo management and dropping them into the Affinity Photo window worked without issue.

Edited by David Appleby
Corrected terminology
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The aflaunch.exe tool and the task manager solution seem like the simplest work-arounds, but they are exactly that - work-arounds. I mostly blame Microsucks and it's limitless capacity to overcomplicate, obfuscate, and irritate - but Serif really dropped the ball as well by not only failing to recognize this problem during development but also failing to warn us that V2 would be going to an "APP" platform. Leaving that info out while simultaneously offering us a nice discount to adopt early, gives the impression that they wanted to "reel us in" before spilling the bad news, and taints what has until now been a sterling reputation. The best way to restore it would be to quickly and loudly re-release V2 as a traditional .exe and avoid MS "innovations" in the future!

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On 1/12/2023 at 3:23 AM, michaelem said:

The aflaunch.exe tool and the task manager solution seem like the simplest work-arounds, but they are exactly that - work-arounds. I mostly blame Microsucks and it's limitless capacity to overcomplicate, obfuscate, and irritate - but Serif really dropped the ball as well by not only failing to recognize this problem during development but also failing to warn us that V2 would be going to an "APP" platform. Leaving that info out while simultaneously offering us a nice discount to adopt early, gives the impression that they wanted to "reel us in" before spilling the bad news, and taints what has until now been a sterling reputation. The best way to restore it would be to quickly and loudly re-release V2 as a traditional .exe and avoid MS "innovations" in the future!

Have you tried using the proxies such as in “%localappdata%\Microsoft\WindowsApps\AffinityPhoto2.exe as that seems to work, at least for me and many others.
But Affinity are planning to release a MSI installer to help people that have non-windows compliant applications such as xnview, dxo or on1 Photo raw calling the Affinity apps.

So it isn’t over complicated just some other apps are non-compliant.

Both PC’s Win 11 x64 System
PC1 ASUS ROG Strix - AMD Ryzen 9 6900X CPU @ 3.3GHz. 32GB RAM

- GPU 1: AMD Radeon integrated. GPU 2: NVIDIA RTX 3060, 6GB
PC2 ASUS ProArt  PZ13 - Snapdragon X Plus X1P42100 (8 CPUs), 16GB RAM
- Neural Processor - Qualcomm® Hexagon™ NPU up to 45TOPS 

- GPU 1: Qualcomm Adreno Graphics, 

 

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6 hours ago, AiDon said:

Have you tried using the proxies such as in “%localappdata%\Microsoft\WindowsApps\AffinityPhoto2.exe as that seems to work, at least for me and many others.
But Affinity are planning to release a MSX installer to help people that have non-windows compliant applications such as xnview, dxo or on1 Photo raw calling the Affinity apps.

So it isn’t over complicated just some other apps are non-compliant.

I take your point, AiDon, but the zero-byte proxy file gives me the "The file cannot be accessed by the system." error mentioned elsewhere; and call me old-fashioned, but when I see a path like "C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\SerifEuropeLtd.AffinityPhoto2_2.0.0.1640_x64__3cqzy0nppv2rt\" vs "C:\Program Files\Affinity\Photo\" ..... yes, I find that overcomplicated.

The issue doesn't really affect me per se, as I don't need to call the app from another program - I simply feel Serif could have avoided the mess entirely by (perhaps optionally) offering the software as a standard install, and they should at least have given notice of the new approach ahead of time. Still, none of this has kept me from purchasing or praising the product, which is still excellent and a welcome relief from the Adobe subscription model!

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7 hours ago, AiDon said:

Have you tried using the proxies such as in “%localappdata%\Microsoft\WindowsApps\AffinityPhoto2.exe as that seems to work, at least for me

FYI, If that works, so should just "AffinityPhoto2" as the operating system takes care of everything else, including the path. When that doesn't work is when Launcher.exe helps other users

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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5 hours ago, Patrick Connor said:

FYI, If that works, so should just "AffinityPhoto2" as the operating system takes care of everything else, including the path.

Sorry my bad but you still need to search for the proxy to add to an application to call externally.

Applications such as Capture One automatically pick up this proxy from the OS as the plugin just uses AffinityPhoto2.

From what I can see most of the apps that have issues with zero byte exe's are developed using the cross platform development tool QT. 

Both PC’s Win 11 x64 System
PC1 ASUS ROG Strix - AMD Ryzen 9 6900X CPU @ 3.3GHz. 32GB RAM

- GPU 1: AMD Radeon integrated. GPU 2: NVIDIA RTX 3060, 6GB
PC2 ASUS ProArt  PZ13 - Snapdragon X Plus X1P42100 (8 CPUs), 16GB RAM
- Neural Processor - Qualcomm® Hexagon™ NPU up to 45TOPS 

- GPU 1: Qualcomm Adreno Graphics, 

 

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  • 1 month later...
On 11/16/2022 at 8:21 AM, cybertec69 said:

 

My refund is being processed. I wasted enough time with this hot mess of a software rollout. And people need to get to grips that this is not a glitch or a bug in the software but a feature. A Microsoft lockdown software feature. This is why they released it in app form. 

Fully agreed.  I'm tired of this.  When I buy software, it becomes MY software.  If this is how Affinity is going to act, they'll never see a dime of my money again.  Seriously tired of this bullshit.

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