Original file associations irreparable with Affinity Photo 2

[salto]

After installing Affinity Photo 2 none of the file associations I had for files that are also served by Affinity Photo 2 open.
Nothing happens when I click a *.pdf, *.jpg, whatever, not even Affinity Photo 2 itself.
In the Windows settings for standard apps all my original associations are still active. But none of them work.
Choose "Open with" from the right click menu let me choose an association, however, nothing happens. It looks as though the installation of Affinity Photo 2 disabled all other software associated with the files.
This ended miraculously when I removed Affinity Photo 2 after much trial and error.
I hope this is no double post, I cannot find a similar issue solved on this board.
Yes, I do need help, thank you for your kind interest.

Windows 11 Pro 64bits
Versie    22H2
Build 22621.819
Windows Feature Experience Pack 1000.22636.1000.0

I edit this post to alert visitors that once you have created an item with Affinity Photo 2 and you uninstall this version, Affinity Photo version 1 can not open your work made in version 2. Bad luck......

 

Edited December 8, 2022 by salto
Alert

[RichardMH]

Have you tried resetting the default apps in Windows settings? I had to do this at one stage to get Capture One to send files to Photo. 

[salto]

Thank you RichardMH, yes I tried that several times but it did not make any difference.
I hope Affinity support comes up with a solution.

[Dan C]

Hi @salto,

Thanks for your report and our sincerest apologies for the delayed response here. We are exceptionally busy following the release of V2 and we thank you for your continued patience and understanding here.

On 12/2/2022 at 5:29 PM, salto said:

I cannot find a similar issue solved on this board.

I agree, I haven't seen this issue reported previously and I do not understand how Affinity could affect other applications opening to view documents, when your default is set to an app that is not Affinity Photo 2.

Is this still occurring for you in the latest update (2.0.4) or have you chosen to leave Affinity uninstalled on your PC at this time?

If you don't currently have the app installed, it may be worth trying the .EXE install versions, rather than the .MSIX versions - so please do let me know

[salto]

Thank you Dan, I reinstalled with the .MSIX version but have the same issue.

I still have Affinity version 1 on my system, is that the issue? Can you not have both versions installed?

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, salto said:

Can you not have both versions installed?

Yes, you can have both installed, and it does not cause a problem like you've described.

[emmrecs01]

@salto

But did you try @Dan C's suggestion of installing the .msi (EXE) version of APh?  So, NOT the .MSIX version.  (If installing the .EXE version works for you - personally I prefer it to the .MSIX version - you can then uninstall the .MSIX version without affecting any assets, plugins etc. you might have already added to APh 2.  This is what I did.)

And, to underline @walt.farrell's comment: I have all the version 1 and version 2 apps happily co-existing on my PC.

[Dan C]

You can find these .EXE versions at the following links, by selecting the Also Available : EXE option below the main download button -

Photo - https://store.serif.com/update/windows/photo/2/
Designer - https://store.serif.com/update/windows/designer/2/
Publisher - https://store.serif.com/update/windows/publisher/2/ 

Please uninstall the .MSIX versions through Settings > Apps before installing the .EXE versions, as emmrecs mentions above this will retain your custom brushes, assets, settings etc

[salto]

OK, thank you both Dan C and Emrecs01, I installed (and uninstalled) the MSIX version. I will try the *.Exe version, thanks for the link, I could not find it anywhere. I will report back after trying that one.

[salto]

Unfortunately, my system got in complete disarray following the installation of the *.exe version.
I don't think it had to do with the *.exe  itself, I think yet another installn/uninstall of Affinity after MSIX and *.exe was too much.
Microsoft store threw errors, and I could not do a full repair because I do not have or want to have a Microsoft account. I work with a local user and admin account only.
When I could not even start NotePad because the file association was missing, and I found that the error codes were mostly related to rights and permissions, I gave up.
I did a repair install of Windows, which has kept me busy this week. But Affinity Photo2 is working fine as is the rest of my system.
Thank you for your kind interest!