aero not activated; no startup; 1.5.0.39

[anonymous]

Tried to launch Photo v1.5.0.39 on Windows 7 x64 with nvidia video card.

 

Program presented a warning, saying:

 

"Windows aero is not activated. This leads to rendering problems and slow speed. Please choose an Aero desktop theme."

 

1. This is a company workstation where all aero themes are deactivated and users have no possibility to activate them.

 

2. With a strong Multicore-CPU and large ammounts of RAM it is unclear to the user why a desktop theme(!!!) should decide whether to run or not.

 

3. The message suggests that only the speed will be slow. Not that missing aero prevents startup at all.

 

Because the machine has much CPU-Power and 8GBs of RAM and slow speed would be acceptable for my usecases i would appreciate the program would leave me a choice after displaying the waring:

"OK, continue with slow speed"

"Cancel"

[Mark Ingram]

This has been discussed in many, many threads before. As this is a beta test, we are interested in real bugs, and real performance problems. When you disable Aero (or Desktop Window Manager Composition, which is what we're really interested in), Windows will fallback to using a legacy driver model, which can lead to rendering and performance problems. This only affects Windows 7, as from Windows 8 onwards, DWM Composition is always enabled.

 

If you want to override the error message, you can use --no-dwm-warning on the command line, though if you report any issues when running the beta, we won't log them unless they've been verified as still occurring with DWM Composition enabled.

[anonymous]

> If you want to override the error message, you can use --no-dwm-warning on the command line

 

Great. And it works for me. Thats the kind of answer i was hoping to get.

 

Your response time is awesome.

 

Good job, Mark.

[verysame]

Hey Mark,

 

Perhaps it's a good idea to add this Aero workaround the Windows Install FAQ and hopefully, people will read it.

[SrPx]

I wouldn't...

They do not support beta problems running the beta or oficial like that... This would render the beta unusable as for the purposes of beta testing, or really get advantage of fixes, as you can never know why sth crashes or works badly using it so.... Probably many fixes wont go, brush engine might do strange things, etc, etc.

 

I have in my sig a link to diminish the aero looks and behaviors if that's a problem. (for example, I hate the glass effect with a passion, so I disabled it). Neither like windows drop shadows, animations, weird stuff... all off. Except 3 or 4 features.

 

Even in minimized features loaded, I very much recommend having Aero. I've left it permanent now. Now performance loss, at all... and I have a super cr4ppy old card...

[verysame]

I wouldn't...

They do not support beta problems running the beta or oficial like that... This would render the beta unusable as for the purposes of beta testing, or really get advantage of fixes, as you can never know why sth crashes or works badly using it so.... Probably many fixes wont go, brush engine might do strange things, etc, etc.

 

I have in my sig a link to diminish the aero looks and behaviors if that's a problem. (for example, I hate the glass effect with a passion, so I disabled it). Neither like windows drop shadows, animations, weird stuff... all off. Except 3 or 4 features.

 

Even in minimized features loaded, I very much recommend having Aero. I've left it permanent now. Now performance loss, at all... and I have a super cr4ppy old card...

 

Well, it's always possible to add it to the FAQ and specify it is an unsupported feature and that Affinity is not responsible for any unexpected result.

I'm suggesting this only because I've seen several threads already with the same request.

It is also true that every time a request like this comes up, it also means the OP didn't bother searching first.

[SrPx]

yep, there you have a point.

[Patrick Connor]

I'll modify the FAQ.

[frank.ho]

I'll modify the FAQ.

 

Hello

and please modify the FAQ for Dummys

 

you can use --no-dwm-warning on the command line  is absolutely not enough support.

 

 

Win7 without Aero Ballaballa Design:

 

- Right mouse button on the affitity photo icon

 

- Characteristics

 

- change the path to target (that is, I think, En: Target)

 

"C: \ Program Files \ Affinity \ AffinityPhoto \ Photo.exe" "--no-dwm-warning "

 

(So let everything stand at the front and append the "--no-dwm-warning" at the rear)

 

- OK

 

- done

 

 

Regards

Frank

[SrPx]

It's a very common thing for average users (even some average user that have needed to install certain game they liked too much, and stuff).  But I agree, the  total pure Dummy™  full version would be that one.

 

Is one of those basic things that crazily most users in Windows do not know. Like typing cmd in the search in Start menu instantly brings the so useful console window (terminal window, some would say)

[Patrick Connor]

Phrasing an FAQ item on this is difficult, as most people have never looked in "program files" or made a shortcut let alone edited it's properties. This is a support nightmare in the making, as it will only be those on Windows 7 who aren't willing or able to apply the Aero theme.

 

The programmers said this was beta only, so I would rather that was fixed than tell people how to do a work around that is very complicated. The program should bring up a big warning each time you run saying something like "the graphic performance is unsupported on Aero" etc, but should nevertheless run after you accept the dialog.

[Mark Ingram]

We decided to keep it because on some machines the document will fail to draw when switching Personas. Rendering bugs caused by falling back to legacy drivers aren't a fun thing to try to work around, so we left the prerequisite in place.

[lowmoor]

I have been operating Photo since early beta with dwm enabled in services but without Aero. First by adding the parameter " --no-dwm-warning" in the Properties>Target page for the Affinity Photo shortcut. This provides that Affinity Photo will start without the Aero check. 

 

But starting by clicking on an associated file would still halt opening of Photo.exe.

 

This is overcome by adding the parameter to the registry key at "Computer\HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\Affinity.Photo\Shell\open\command  so that the Default Key string becomes: 

 

"C:\Program Files\Affinity\Affinity Photo\Photo.exe" "%1" "--no-dwm-warning"

 

Using Win7-64 with Firepro card.

 

Lowmoor

[mnphotos]

...

 

I have in my sig a link to diminish the aero looks and behaviors if that's a problem. (for example, I hate the glass effect with a passion, so I disabled it). Neither like windows drop shadows, animations, weird stuff... all off. Except 3 or 4 features.

 

Even in minimized features loaded, I very much recommend having Aero. I've left it permanent now. Now performance loss, at all... and I have a super cr4ppy old card...

 

I'm not seeing the link in your sig. Could you please provide that to me?

 

Thanks.

[SrPx]

Sorry, I deleted my tutorials from my sig a while ago, as I'm not around so much lately, and not up to date with the betas (at other time I probably will), so, tutorials get obsolete as the applications evolve. 

 

But I believe I was referring to this very old one :

 

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/28514-small-tip-for-people-disliking-aero-windows-7/

 

Still, that's very old, and no big surprise if I tell you that your best bet is going first to the info direct from the developers about the matter, then maybe read about my findings in my thread. The official info - as far as I know ! -  about Aero and Affinity's apps is here :

 

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/27717-windows-install-faq/

 

So, pls read that last one first.

[DVan]

I'm running the trial (1.5.1.54) and hit this Aero problem with Win7. I run tons of diverse stuff and this is the first time I've seen this as a requirement. Runs with the --no-dwm-warning adjustment, BUT... I do not want and have no plans to turn on Aero.  I have seen a few cases with screens not re-drawing, but have no idea what other problems may appear as I use various other things.

 

The responses here refer to the beta test versions. We are now Live. Obviously not fixed.

 

Any plans to fix this this?  If so when?

 

I want to like / use this program, but not if it's going to be a problem within my environment.

[Patrick Connor]

DVan,

 

We don't plan to 'fix' this, as it would mean supporting every graphic drivers quirks rather than this universal dwm supplied set of commands.

 

Since the public beta we have changed our opinion about the likelihood of needing to implement this second code path.

[Mark Ingram]

I'm running the trial (1.5.1.54) and hit this Aero problem with Win7. I run tons of diverse stuff and this is the first time I've seen this as a requirement. Runs with the --no-dwm-warning adjustment, BUT... I do not want and have no plans to turn on Aero.  I have seen a few cases with screens not re-drawing, but have no idea what other problems may appear as I use various other things.

 

The responses here refer to the beta test versions. We are now Live. Obviously not fixed.

 

Any plans to fix this this?  If so when?

 

I want to like / use this program, but not if it's going to be a problem within my environment.

 

The problems that arise from disabling DWM in Windows 7 (note, in Windows 8 and beyond, it is permanently enabled, so this isn't a problem on later OSs) aren't ones that can be fixed by us, they would need to be fixed by the driver manufacturers (NVIDIA, AMD, Intel) and Microsoft. In this case, we suggest you continue using the --no-dwm-warning flag, until you update your OS.

[DVan]

Thanks for the feedback. There are multiple reasons I stay on Win 7. I have no plans to EVER upgrade beyond it. With almost a decade of a huge variety of demanding applications installed on this machine, this is the only one I've seen that requires this global environmental adjustment to run properly.

 

Any chance you'll port this to Linux?

[SrPx]

Nope, I doubt that would happen, stated (and explained the reasons in detail) by them many times in a pair (surely more) of very (*very*)  long threads. :)

 

I'm in Win 7 (but have installed Windows 10s in many machines already) yet only due to having all color calibration and certain old drivers stuff to be ported to a new OS (would be much of a problem to do so in Linux, BTW ! And I am well versed in Linux  ;)  ), and needing a good chunk of time, that is, moment of no projects, a week or so, to mount that up (unlikely for my intense activity). As I need not just to install the stuff, but fine tune a lot of settings, applications, etc. I have a very complex system as I work in many profiles in graphics creation.

 

I am expert in systems stuff (have worked as tech support), and Win 10 can be configured really well, removing certain crap that comes from default. (anyway, somehow it has been so since start. I never used a Windows in its "vanilla" form. Not even when installing to users in whatever the company) Indeed, I have tested personally win 8.1 and win 10 to handle memory , cpu and resources (but most of all, memory) incredibly (I needed to check many times to believe it, several machines) better than Win 7. Even while Win 7 is a vast improvement over XP (I don't even consider Vista as a real OS...) in almost every sense.  I only tell you this as I believe people claiming Win 10 is terrible is... simply not fully well informed. IMO. No pun intended, I deeply respect anyone's opinion, but I believe that was merely an aggressive (imo, not casual) campaign all over internet, I initially was believing it 100%, until I did check things by myself, in the nitty-gritty details. So, tech side, things are clear, Win 10 is a great improvement. Privacy stuff, of course, if you leave Cortana ON and leave all stuff on as it comes, that's a bit of a disaster. But once all touched (quite easy, and 123 tutorials are easily found in first google results), I'd be WAY more concerned by just using google, any smartphone of today, allowing cookies (that is browsing ANY site today, almost), installing applications, or using any email provider that is not of your own hosting (and even so...)  being all that much more worrying rather than having a well configured Windows 10  on a desktop machine.... My 2 cents.

[Mark Ingram]

Thanks for the feedback. There are multiple reasons I stay on Win 7. I have no plans to EVER upgrade beyond it. With almost a decade of a huge variety of demanding applications installed on this machine, this is the only one I've seen that requires this global environmental adjustment to run properly.

 

Any chance you'll port this to Linux?

 

Hi, no chance of a port to Linux anytime soon, sorry.

It's your choice to stick with Windows 7, but you should be aware that in 2.5 years time, Windows 7 will reach end of life support from Microsoft.

[DVan]

Sorry to hear that about Linux, but was the expected answer. I'd move entirely to Linux, if the apps I care about where there. I'm writing this on Linux, as I do all my general email/web (and a few other) type things where they work well on it. The most stable and secure environment I have. It is getting better with more things becoming available. Just need more apps like yours to show up there!

 

Yes, am aware of EOLife stuff, but won't keep me from using it. I still run a couple of my old XP box's in Virtual Machines, as it's they only way to run selected apps that aren’t worth the cost or time to port/upgrade. In a case or 2, porting is not even possible.

 

I do believe a fresh install of Win10 can be made to run well enough, but have too many horror stories of people close to me that have "attempted" (and failed) upgrades, so will never be doing that. Maybe Win12 will be worth looking at by the time I'm ready to start again from scratch.

[Willabong]

Windows 10 is the last version of Windows, there will not be another version!  Windows 10 was created in such a way as to be infinitely upgradeable, so Microsoft intend this version to be the last, and it will be upgraded indefinitely in a similar way to the MAc OS. ..... So don't hold your breath for Windows version 11 or 12 etc.

[DVan]

Back to this Aero problem...  What would be helpful (since you won't eliminate it), would be to have a way to turn of the warning/stopping of the program when Aero is not running.  Setting the  "--no-dwm-warning" bit in multiple locations can be busy and error prone, and will not work in some cases (like sending files in from some external applications).

 

Having a flag to turn the warn/stop off in the preferences or .config file would prevent a lot of the frustration over this.

[SandyKron]

I purchased Affinity Photo and Designer many months ago.  All of a sudden the Windows Aero is not enabled came up.  Now I can't use the programs.  I changed my desktop theme, and Affinity worked for a little while.  Now I'm getting the same error message and can't use the programs I paid for.