Starting Affinity Photo 2 from Irfanview

[1ST1]

Hello, I usually use Irfanview to view my new photos and then when decidinmg to work on a photo I use the function to start an external application from Irfanview. For that I can setup three programs in Irfanview which can be started by pressing Shift+1, Shift+2 or Shift+3. So on Shift+1 I have setup "C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\SerifEuropeLtd.AffinityPhoto2_2.3.0.2165_x64__3cqzy0nppv2rt\App\Photo.exe" for Affinity 2  and Shift+3 I still have setup "C:\Program Files\Affinity\Photo\Photo.exe" for Affinity version 1. (On Shift+2 there is Gimp)

I have done this setup on two computers. On the notebook with Windows 11 (23H2) it works fine, both versions of Affinity Photo just start as expected and automatically open the photo viewed in Irfanview. On the desktop still with WIndows 10 only Affinity Photo 1 starts, the version two does not. I have verified, the path to photo.exe of Affinity 2 is the same on both.

Also when double clicking on photo.exe inside "C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\SerifEuropeLtd.AffinityPhoto2_2.3.0.2165_x64__3cqzy0nppv2rt\App\" in Windows Explorer on the WIn 10 machine Affinity does not start while in Win 11 it does.

Any idea how to fix that on the Win 10 desktop?

Edited December 30, 2023 by 1ST1

[walt.farrell]

Welcome to the Serif Affinity forums.

You will probably find several FAQ articles helpful:

 

 

 

 

[Patrick Connor]

Walt has pointed you to the important information. In addition I would add that you should NOT point to the sandboxes EXEs directly in those folder, because, as you may notice, the hidden sandboxes folder includes the version number (that's just how MSIX installs work) and so when the application next patches/updates, the exe will move to a new folder and your calling application will not be able to find it.

[1ST1]

Thanks a lot, so now I will point to

C:\Users\[USERNAME]\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps\AffinityPhoto2.exe

This is working, thanks.