I've delayed mentioning this thinking the problem
may have been due to my lack of knowledge, but.

I'm running Vista without any background programs running.

Painter will become non-responsive when I stop and try to restart the auto-paint more than once, especially when I try to change brushes.

Corel's tech supports only answer is to un and reinstall the program at $25 a pop, doesn't work.
I have the academic version.

Suggestions?

[moved your thread to this forum more more visibility]

Did you upgrade to Vista? Reason I ask is if falling back XP is still a possibility, that may be a viable option.

Also consider a Google search: "painter X" autopaint* vista
...to see if you can find other hits.

Is there a known problem with Painter and Vista?

Is there a known problem with Painter and Vista?Not that I'm aware of. Suggestion was based on historical precedent: Painter has a well deserved reputation for being buggy compared to other high priced applications, especially new versions (X shipped about 2 months ago) + Vista is a new OS = higher likelihood of encountering obscure problems than Painter X + Win XP.

Original poster appears to not have a lot of troubleshooting experience. My suggestion to google was an attempt to teach him to fish. Google can often (but not always) be your friend in cases like this.

That said I didn't get any hits just now googling various keyword combos, so we're back to square one for now...

Suggestions?Does it do this if you are running in Safe Mode. If not, start taking a look at what utility programs load at startup. Try systematically eliminating them to figure out which one or ones are contributing to this problem.

A possible tech resource:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/Painter-Novitiate/

The only de bugging I can do is when I'm hand-held. I've gotten into the habit of holding down the Shift key when booting up Painter, helps a little.

It's a brand new Gateway Intel duo core, preinstalled with Vista and I've had other minor problems.

The only de bugging I can do is when I'm hand-held. I've gotten into the habit of holding down the Shift key when booting up Painter, helps a little.I'd walk you through this, but my wrist problems are so bad now, I can't commit to anything.

This is actually a generic trouble-shooting method, and the Safe mode test will tell you whether to bother. http://support.gateway.com/s/software/MICROSOF/vista/7515418/7515418su237.shtml. Boot in to safe mode, then try Painter. When you are done, reboot as you normally do.

Running Painter in safe mode shows no improvement.
Discovering more problems; when using pens in auto-paint, all I get are big blobs of paint on my tracing paper even though I'm in clone mode.

I'm getting close to my return period but I like the potential of the program.

Running Painter in safe mode shows no improvement.
Discovering more problems; when using pens in auto-paint, all I get are big blobs of paint on my tracing paper even though I'm in clone mode.The problem is more obscure than I thought. And I don't even have Painter X installed to take a look. The demo version ran okay on my Gateway, although it is running XP.

I'm trying to think of which Painter community is the most technically savvy. When I've had questions I go to the Corel Painter Newsgroup. This is staffed by volunteers who use Painter, not tech support people reading scripts. I just don't know how to expain how to use of newsgroups. http://support.corel.com/scripts/rightnow.cfg/php.exe/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=754345

A quick search turned up this place: http://forums.cgsociety.org/forumdisplay.php?f=112. It seems to be a very active Painter community. I hate to pass you off, but this is all I can think of.

FYI--Just got of the phone with Corel tech support. He told me uninstall it using a technique described in doc. 760269 and then reinstall. If still having problems try running it under a separate administrater (?) using doc.753659.
None of this makes any sense to me so I'm going to have my geek son look at it. stay tuned

not all bad, CS3 came today

Wow. That's great that they called you back. Most software companies would not bother. And I'm glad you have your son to help you with this. I hope it works out.

I didn't get to be 64y/o by being an optimist, so would anything be gained by getting a replacement disc? Kinda like under the lemon law.

I didn't get to be 64y/o by being an optimist, so would anything be gained by getting a replacement disc? Kinda like under the lemon law.You are thinking there might be a glitch on the disc? Well, if it were my system and I wanted to check this out, I'd probably download the trial version and see if it works better. But only after I had done the other recommendations first, and they failed.

If it was a bad disk it likely wouldn't have installed at all.

How much RAM do you have?

Have you tried running MSCONFIG (type it in the Run box and hit return) and disabling all the entries in the Startup tab (then reboot)? (don't forget to reenable them later)

FWIW, I'm running Painter X and Vista with no problems. I tried the events you mentioned triggered your problem, without incident.

Got it working guys. I deleted virtually every program on the computer, unistalled Painter and installed it, rebooted several times and all of that seemed to take care of most of the problems.
Will be pulling each program out of trash one at a time and checking for conflict.

Thanks for your support

Congrats on getting over the hump... and hats off to your tenacity. :bow: