jimh12345 Posted February 2 Posted February 2 I just bought a new PC and installed AP 2.5.7. On this system, I get no previews for AP files in Windows Explorer. The preview pane says "no preview available". I get thumbnails in the left-hand pane, so at least I can see what files I'm opening, but no previews. On my previous Windows 11 PC I got previews, but they were small. Now, on the new Win11 system, I get no previews at all. Seems like this problem has affected others and has been discussed here: But still no solution? Quote
walt.farrell Posted February 3 Posted February 3 Did you perhaps have the MSI/EXE version of the application installed on your other system, but now you've installed the MSIX version? That could explain the difference in behavior, and might give you a workaround. Or, perhaps you had V1 of the Affinity applications installed, as well as V2? That might also explain it if the new system only has V2. That would provide another workaround. Quote -- 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 18.3, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard Mac: 2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sequoia 15.0.1
jimh12345 Posted February 3 Author Posted February 3 This was a brand new system and had never seen any version of AP before. I installed and activated the MSI/EXE version. walt.farrell 1 Quote
walt.farrell Posted February 4 Posted February 4 17 hours ago, jimh12345 said: This was a brand new system and had never seen any version of AP before. I installed and activated the MSI/EXE version. Thanks. If you're sure it was the MSI/EXE version of the installer, I have no other ideas. Sorry. Quote -- 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 18.3, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard Mac: 2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sequoia 15.0.1
jimh12345 Posted February 4 Author Posted February 4 On further inspection it looks like - although I definitely intended to install the MSI version - I somehow installed that confounded MSIX nonsense by mistake. It's been a long time since I last dealt with this tapeworm - how do I completely remove it and get back to the MSI? Is it sufficient to just ask Windows to uninstall the app or will that leave some sort of residue behind? Quote
mopperle Posted February 4 Posted February 4 1 hour ago, jimh12345 said: Is it sufficient to just ask Windows to uninstall the app or will that leave some sort of residue behind? Yes. The MSIX installation is kind of a sandbox installation. So when you tell Windows to uninstall a software installed via MSIX, it simply wipes this sandbox folder. But you shuld be aware, that in case you defind presets or similar things for your Affinity MSIX installation, they will be wiped too, as they are nor visible to msi/exe installations. Quote Regards, Otto Affinity Suite v2.5.x - Windows 11 Pro
jimh12345 Posted February 5 Author Posted February 5 I uninstalled the MSIX, installed and activated the MSI/EXE, and now I have previews - sort of. As before (in the old thread I linked above) the previews are small, obviously just a bigger version of the thumbnail because they include the AP icon at lower right. And that's no surprise, because if I dig into the Registry I see the registered "preview handler" is "C:\Program Files\Affinity\Common\Thumbnail.dll". It seems AP doesn't really have a preview handler. I recall from the old thread that some people said having V1 installed alongside V2 fixed the problem - maybe because V1 installs a proper preview handler. Can I just install V1 to find out, without messing up V2? Quote
PaulEC Posted February 5 Posted February 5 1 hour ago, jimh12345 said: Can I just install V1 to find out, without messing up V2? v1 is a separate install to v2, so there's no problem installing and running them together. (This assumes that you purchased v1, otherwise it won't be available for you to download.) Quote Acer XC-895 : Core i5-10400 Hexa-core 2.90 GHz : 32GB RAM : Intel UHD Graphics 630 : Windows 11 Home Affinity Publisher 2 : Affinity Photo 2 : Affinity Designer 2 : (latest release versions) on desktop and iPad "Beware of false knowledge, it is more dangerous than ignorance." (GBS)
Catshill Posted February 5 Posted February 5 Preview doesn’t work on W11 for Affinity files for me either unless I turn off the syncing of files to my NAS. Quote
walt.farrell Posted February 5 Posted February 5 18 hours ago, mopperle said: But you shuld be aware, that in case you defind presets or similar things for your Affinity MSIX installation, they will be wiped too, as they are nor visible to msi/exe installations. If you start with the MSIX installed, and then install the MSI/EXE version, all your settings will carry across automatically. After that, you can Uninstall the MSIX version safely without losing anything. Quote -- 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 18.3, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard Mac: 2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sequoia 15.0.1
walt.farrell Posted February 5 Posted February 5 6 hours ago, Catshill said: Preview doesn’t work on W11 for Affinity files for me either unless I turn off the syncing of files to my NAS. Synching to a NAS should not matter. But if you have some NAS process that offloads files from the PC to the NAS and only leaves some kind of "stub" to save space, that would have an effect. Quote -- 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 18.3, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard Mac: 2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sequoia 15.0.1
jimh12345 Posted February 5 Author Posted February 5 I installed and activated V1 but nothing changed - I still have the tiny previews. Even tried changing the file association in Windows ("open with") to V1. No difference. I can see in the Registry that the "preview handler" that's installed for the .aphoto file extension is this file: C:\Program Files\Affinity\Common\thumbnail.dll On my system that file has a date of 12/4/2024, even after installing V1, so installing V1 didn't overwrite it. Could someone who's getting correct, full size previews please check this file on their system, post its date and size, and note whether any other files are in that folder? Quote
Catshill Posted February 5 Posted February 5 8 hours ago, walt.farrell said: Synching to a NAS should not matter. But if you have some NAS process that offloads files from the PC to the NAS and only leaves some kind of "stub" to save space, that would have an effect. It should not make a difference but it does and the Sync software duplicates files. It doesn’t create shortcuts. See… walt.farrell 1 Quote
walt.farrell Posted February 6 Posted February 6 Thanks for the reference to the earlier discussion. What NAS and Sync utility are you using, @Catshill? Also, you mention that it is not creating shortcuts, but from that other discussion I wonder if it might be creating hard links and if they're not being handled correctly. Here's something you can try to determine if that is happening. Run the fsutil command for both the original file and for the copied file on the NAS. For example, if the file has a drive letter available, you can run fsutil hardlink list C:\path_to_file.xxx For the file on NAS, if you haven't assigned a drive letter you would need to address it differently and I would need to be on my Windows machine to confirm the syntax for that, or perhaps you could open a Command Prompt to the directory on the NAS which would let you use the path name directly. Quote -- 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 18.3, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard Mac: 2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sequoia 15.0.1
jimh12345 Posted February 6 Author Posted February 6 I can only imagine one possible connection between NAS sync and AP previews: the synchronization software could be using the file systems attributes to track which files need synching. I don't know why date/time wouldn't be enough information, but it could be a performance thing. Maybe the synch software sets and clears the archive or indexing attributes for its own internal purposes. Now, there's no obvious reason why this would affect AP previews, but I can't think of another way the NAS could leave something behind that would confuse AP. Here's a list of attributes: https://www.2brightsparks.com/resources/articles/understanding-file-attributes.html?srsltid=AfmBOopu52Br8EdxD-lD7XS0XX3i9LPHwcX45ENF3C1Tg1xw8P1Yv2GR Still hoping someone here will post what's in their C:\Program Files\Affinity\Common\ folder... Quote
mopperle Posted February 6 Posted February 6 1 hour ago, jimh12345 said: Still hoping someone here will post what's in their C:\Program Files\Affinity\Common\ folder... I got exactly the same: C:\Program Files\Affinity\Common\thumbnail.dll But what do you mean by On 2/5/2025 at 4:55 PM, jimh12345 said: correct, full size previews The previews are small, thats correct and AFAIK this is by design: Quote Regards, Otto Affinity Suite v2.5.x - Windows 11 Pro
jimh12345 Posted February 6 Author Posted February 6 2 hours ago, mopperle said: I got exactly the same: C:\Program Files\Affinity\Common\thumbnail.dll But what do you mean by The previews are small, thats correct and AFAIK this is by design: Apparently you're correct, AP doesn't install a shell preview handler and so Windows just invokes the thumbnail handler. And we get these pathetic, non-resizable "previews". I just installed V1 on a clean machine, and it didn't do resizable previews either. But my confusion is now total, because I think I remember other posters here saying they got nice resizable previews. And I have a distant memory that this used to work in V1. So if that's true, it stopped working long ago. Quote
Catshill Posted February 6 Posted February 6 9 hours ago, walt.farrell said: What NAS and Sync utility are you using, Qnap and QSync. Files from Documents folder are duplicated to the NAS. walt.farrell 1 Quote
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