Lightroom & External E#diting

[JackJ]

Hello.

I'm a new Affinity Photo user and this is my first time here; hopefully I don't break too many rules.  I purchased Affinity Photo 2 days ago, and it runs fine from the Windows 10 Start Menu.

Problem:  I cannot open the program as an external editor from Lightroom or FastRawViewer.

Background:  I downloaded your program from your website and installed it about a week or so ago.  Everything worked just fine; I could open it as an external editor from both Lightroom and FastRawViewer.

Microsoft advertised Affinity Photo on sale, so I bought it from them (that was my mistake).  I uninstalled the trial version and then installed the version from Microsoft.  As stated above, Affinity Photo opens and works fine from the Windows Start Menu.  However, I cannot start it as an external editor from Lightroom or FastRawViewer.  I see where the execution program resides, but I do not have authority to start it from there, even as an Administrator.  I tried pointing both programs to that file, but it will not start (I assume for the same reason).  I thought about changing folder / file permissions but decided that shouldn't be necessary since the program starts fine from the start menu.

I've searched the 2 start menu locations I know of (C:\User\Appdata\Microsoft . . ., C:\Program Data\Microsoft . . . .).  But the Affinity Photo icon is not in either, and I cannot find where it resides.  Google is normally my friend, but no joy this time.

Summary: Please tell me what I have to do to get it to work as an external editor (or give me a license to install it normally lol).

Thank you!

Jack

[Dan C]

Hi JackJ,

Welcome to the forums

When purchasing the app from the Microsoft Store, rather than the Affinity Store the app is Sandboxed by Windows, meaning you cannot access certain folders like you can when installing a normal .exe. This unfortunately makes the process of choosing the .exe from within Lightroom much trickier, however not impossible.

The following post outlines how this can be done, you must first force access to the correct folder and then choose this path through Lightroom. I hope this helps!

 

[JackJ]

Dan C.

Thanks for your reply.  As it turns out, I did find that page you linked me to.  As a general rule, I don't like to download and run scripts from the internet, especially ones that affect the registry.  I did try the manual approach but used the "Administrators" group instead of my logon ID; I did get ownership of the top folder but received permission errors for various child folders / files.  With 240 folders in that directory, I decided to stop there and ask for help.

With your prompting, however, I did download and run the script.  Now all works as expected,  though I feel sorry for anyone who gets this laptop when I'm done with it.  In hindsight, maybe I should have asked Microsoft for help?.    :-) 

Again, thank you for your courteous and prompt reply!!

Jack

[JackJ]

Hello!  To whoever might answer, thank you for your time!

I believe a recent update to 1.8.0.585 made the problem come back.  I tried "Take Ownership" again, but it didn't work.  What other options do I have?  Does Serif offer a discount for those of us who unwittingly bought your software through Microsoft?

[Dan C]

Hi again JackJ

Could you please try the second method at the below link to gain access to these folders, and let me know if this works for you?

https://www.maketecheasier.com/access-windowsapps-folder-windows-10/

We don't have any specific discounts for these customers usually, however if you were to email our customer service team (affinity@serif.com) and explain your situation they may be able to offer a 1 time discount for you. My apologies I can't be more concrete here!

[JackJ]

Hello Dan C.

Thank you for both suggestions.  I tried the manual method last time.  It didn't work, but "Take Ownership" did.  At your suggestion, I will try the manual method again. 

[JackJ]

Hello again.

Short answer . . . it didn't work.

I just tried the manual method in the link you provided.  All seemed to go well, but I couldn't even open the "WindowsApps" folder when done (I could before).  There was a popup with a "Continue" option, so I clicked it.  I could then drill down into that folder.  I went to the "SerifEurope...\Program" folder and tried to start Photo.exe manually; it would not start.  Just to double-check, I tried to edit a photo in Lightroom.  I got the popup, but Affinity Photo did not start.  I then clicked on "Affinity Photo" in the Windows Start menu and it started, so I didn't break that.

Not sure where to go from here.  I understand this is a Windows issue, but it is terribly frustrating.  I'm open to any other options you may think of.

[Dan C]

Thanks for your update and I'm very sorry to hear this. As far as I know, without the correct permissions you wouldn't be able to access this folder at all, so the fact that you can navigate to this file does indicate that something is correct - even if not everything is working as intended.

When you try to open the .exe file directly, what happens? Do you see any error message, or Windows Security dialog on screen? If you right-click on the .exe file and select Run as Administrator, does the app open as expected?

[IanSG]

On 3/13/2020 at 5:08 PM, JackJ said:

I'm open to any other options you may think of.

This is a horrible cludge, but it works with XnViewMP, so it's worth trying!  I have a program called "Everything" installed on my PC - it searches for files.

1/  Find Photo.exe

2/  Go to the containing folder and copy all the files and subfolders

3/ Create a folder e.g. MyAP

4/ Paste the files into the new folder

5/ Find vcruntime140_1.dll  - there may be more than one copy - I used one from the same folder structure where I found Photo.exe

6/ Copy and paste it to your newly created folder

Now try using "your" copy of Photo.exe in LR.

[JackJ]

Dan C,

Thank you for your response.  In answer to your question, nothing happened with or without "Running As Administrator."  I had the same result when I copied the folder to another location as IanSG recommended until I copied vcruntime140_1.dll into the same location.  At that point Photo.exe would start from my new folder.  I tried to copy it into the MS folder but ran into permission problems again.  This happens even though I own the folder and have "Full" control.  I think that's because I'm also a "User," and MS gives the lowest authority when an ID is found more than once.

[JackJ]

IanSG,

Thanks for that recommendation!  I can now "Edit in" Affinity Photo from Lightroom.  The down side is I have to keep a manual lookout for updates and suppose do the same when one is found.  A little less than ideal, but certainly doable, at least until Serif or MS disallow that.

Thank you for taking the time to share your fix!

Jack

[JackJ]

After getting it to work as outlined above, I tried another option.  I copied vcruntime140_1.dll to a folder and added that folder to the top of my "System Variable Path" environment.  I went back to the Affinity folder in WindowsApps and double-clicked Photo.exe.  It started up  just fine, so that's all it needed.  Of course, doing this requires one to have the ability to get to the folder in the first place which is not for the faint of heart.  Personally, I think copying Affinity Photo contents into another folder as IanSG suggested above is the best option (though you need permission to do that as well).

At least this explains what Photo.exe needs in order to run as it did before.  Good luck to others who have this problem in Lightroom.

[IanSG]

 

2 hours ago, JackJ said:

(though you need permission to do that as well).

I changed the permissions way back - I'd forgotten about that!  But if the only requirement is to have an unsandboxed dll that seems like a better solution - it's certainly much more elegant.

[JackJ]

it's certainly much more elegant.

Agreed except that Microsoft can come along and change permissions back any time (Feature Update?).  That's why I like the whole program outside the sandbox like it normally would be.  Regardless, before I had a problem . . . now I have choices.  😊  Thanks again!  (not sure I did that "quote" thing right)

[JackJ]

Hello again.

Microsoft did me a favor and updated Affinity Photo to 1.9 meaning I was again unable to "Edit in" Affinity Photo from Lightroom.  It also turned out Microsoft changed the "WindowsApps" folder permissions in Program Files, so I could no longer navigate to Photo.exe to fix it.  Frankly I don't know when that happened as last time I copied the Affinity Photo program files to another directory.  That still worked, but I wanted to use the new version of Affinity Photo.

I remember I had some issues with "Take Ownership" the last time I tried to use it.  I did some research, and it turns out the author updated the script this past January.  In short, I downloaded it, ran it on "C:\Program Files\WindowsApps", and it worked fine; I now have access to that folder.  His download link is below, but he also gives it within his scripts.  New versions can be found here:

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/3841-add-take-ownership-context-menu-windows-10-a.html

One last thing . . . To get it to work, I added the vcruntime140_1.dll file to "%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps" which is included in the user's environment "Path."  At that point I could start the program by double-clicking "Photo.exe" in C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\SerifEuropeLtd.AffinityPhoto_10900.932.0.0_x64__844sdzfcmm7k0. (whew, what a long folder name lol).

In my opinion, anyone with Lightroom or similar thinking about buying this program should avoid getting it from Microsoft.  Maybe one day Serif will find its own workaround to launch it from Lightroom (including vcruntime140_1.dll as part of the installation would help a little).  Hope this helps someone.