Affinity Photo 2 Icon

[FestusHagan]

I wish to place an Affinity Photo 2 icon on my Windows Desktop. How can I do this? I don't just want it "pinned to the taskbar"

Regards

[walt.farrell]

(But also, note that Serif have agreed to provide MSI-based installers, sometime in the future, as they had for V1, so this may not be necessary in the future if you use them instead of the MSIX installers they currently ship.)

[PhotoCat]

I had the same issue, received the same "fix" suggestion.  Took about 15 seconds.  Works great!  No need to wait.

[Hamfast]

I am not at all happy with Serif's decision to go down the .msix path. It makes the install process and accessing the program, unnecessarily convoluted and "user-unfriendly", and takes the control and decisions away from the user, like allowing desktop icons, install paths etc.

I downloaded and installed the program after I had purchased the license, and ran it to activate it, and closed the program and could find no icon on the desktop. And it didn't appear in my Windows 10 menu, neither in the Windows 10 Program Files folder under Affinity.

Only after unneccessarily upgrading my Windows 10 to the latest version, (which I thought was the issue) and discovering the program now hiding in a the hidden WindowsApp folder, and running all sorts of registry hacks to get unsuccessfully get access, then I discovered that I was not alone in my issue on the Serif forums!

Too late now. I have uninstalled the program and will wait until Serif come to their senses and bring back the tried and tested .MSI installer. In the meantime I will stick with V1.

 

 

[Mark Ingram]

8 minutes ago, Hamfast said:

it didn't appear in my Windows 10 menu

It should have done. Here's a shot of Designer in my Start Menu for reference:

10 minutes ago, Hamfast said:

running all sorts of registry hacks to get unsuccessfully get access

You shouldn't need to do this. I'm not sure what your use-case is here, but alternatives to this approach are provided in the FAQ: 

 

11 minutes ago, Hamfast said:

bring back the tried and tested .MSI installer

One of our other FAQs covers this as well:

 

[Hamfast]

On 11/16/2022 at 7:11 PM, Mark Ingram said:

It should have done. Here's a shot of Designer in my Start Menu for reference:

You shouldn't need to do this. I'm not sure what your use-case is here, but alternatives to this approach are provided in the FAQ: 

 

One of our other FAQs covers this as well:

 

I don't consider my  use-case as unusual, (Windows 10 Edu/Ent) and this is the first install of all my programs, which include Office 365, where the installer does NOT give the user the option to have a desktop icon or creates a desktop icon by default.

The hack to use the Shell:AppsFolder admittedly works...

...but it is a obscure hack that most normal Windows users would not even know about. It is also buried in the FAQs and not pinned to the top of the FAQ list, and required a search for the term "no icons appearing on Windows 10 Desktop for Affinity Photo 2" on Google, before I found it a day later. I think Serif can do better with their documentation and overall support of this new version.

The impression I get from reading the reviews of Affinity Photo 2, and the comments and feedback in the forums, is that Photo 2 is still a late Beta product that was rushed to market! The implication that the MSI will only be released later (I would assume if enough users request/complain about it) points to the fact that Serif did not do their homework and understand their user base.

Photo 2, I am sure will become a better product, but not now.

[mjw]

I find it hard to believe that Real users weren't involved in UAT