I have had my first report of installation trouble on PC. Luckily it is a simple problem, with a potentially complex description and manifestation.

During installation, a C prompt screen appears and the installation either seems to run the install or flash and freeze. The tools do not appear in elements in either result.

The problem is that Elements has been installed to something other than the C drive using something other than the default installation.

Two solutions:
1. Install elements to the C drive and then re-install the power tools, or
2. move the files that result from the installation on the C drive to the Effects folder in Elements where you have it installed and delete the Effects Cache folder manually.

Hope that helps!

I have had my first report of installation trouble on PC. Luckily it is a simple problem, with a potentially complex description and manifestation.

During installation, a C prompt screen appears and the installation either seems to run the install or flash and freeze. The tools do not appear in elements in either result.

The problem is that Elements has been installed to something other than the C drive using something other than the default installation.

Two solutions:
1. Install elements to the C drive and then re-install the power tools, or
2. move the files that result from the installation on the C drive to the Effects folder in Elements where you have it installed and delete the Effects Cache folder manually.

Hope that helps!

I am dual booting Win 98SE on C to run film scanner and old hardware and Win XP Pro on G with all the new stuff. The Hidden Power Tools went to C. I would have preferred an option to put it on G but your Solution 2 worked --after I deleted only the files in, but I did not "delete the Effects Cache folder manually". Some of us get in trouble by taking things too literally. I am in business and am checking HPfor3 out. I worked with HPfor2 this past year.
If I have not been clear I recommend a choice for location along with the default to C and clear instructions somewhere as to how to get Hpfor3 working after it goes to the wrong drive (delete the files in the Effects Cache folder after moving the Hpfor3 files over.
Thank you for a great book and tools.
Leo

it is quite impossible to change it now. However, I'd like to clarify. In order to do better cleanup than with the past installer (e.g., automatically deleting the cash for the user), I had to locate the install and the path. From my experience in supporting the tools for Elements 2 and other tools I have released, users with less experience had more trouble deleting cache and targeting the installation correctly...so I made the installer for the least-common denominator. if you choose to do something other than a default installation of the Adobe product (which they do not recommend), then you need to be of the calibre of user that can successfully move files and follow secondary installation routines.

that said, I would have made the installer a little differently to offer the installation path. Fix one problem and another crops up. I am fully confident, however, that you advanced users that have a G (!) drive will be able to handle it.

Hi there,

Although I am used to solve complex problems in my PC (yes, I do a lot of changes and sometimes I damage it...), the solution 2, which is quite simple, was not working, i.e. the power tolls were not appearing as part of the palette. It was solved after I decided to double click in any of the atn files recently copied to my drive D, I had to select "Open with -> select from a list -> Photoshop Elements 3. After this action, I just checked that all files in the four folders created by the Power Tools installation were associated to Photoshop Elements 3 and the Power Tools were part of the palette.

Happy new year!!!

Carlos

I am not sure exactly how that would make a difference because Elements would be reading the files rather than the operating system looking for a program to launch them in (which is what association is for). It may be that either rebooting or restarting Elements did the trick...or perhaps even waiting. I tried to push Adobe to have a look at the cache update procedure because it clearly was not fast--nor did it update promptly without being deleted. it can take up to five minutes for the cache to rebuild, so it may just have been a matter of waiting.

anyone else have the same experience?

Thank you for posting this workaround. My XP drive is letter I:, so I hit the same installation problem. Finding this thread has enabled me to fix it quickly.

I copied the four folders containing the power tools from the Effects folder on the C: drive to the same folder on the I: drive and then deleted the contents of the Effects Cache folder on the I: drive, not the folder itself.

I then fired up Elements 3.0 and all the tools were present.

Thank you for posting this workaround. My XP drive is letter I:, so I hit the same installation problem. Finding this thread has enabled me to fix it quickly.
.

Has anyone tried replacing the C: in the program text with another letter?

You don´t want to know why the machine has no C drive, but it would require a physical reinstallation.

Regards

Mike Murphy

Regretfully there is no means for the user to enter the drive letter using the installer. I did not check the box when creating the installer that allows users to choose another drive. I only realized this after the book was distributed, so there is no way to change it now. I realize I am a little old school, but I never heard of a PC computer with no C drive...and I work at a computer company/software manufacturer, where you'd think this stuff would come up all the time if it were a wide-spread issue.

If there is a C drive, the solution as stated on the website is to just install and move the tools, then delete the Cache. If there is no C drive...one of two things can happen. You can try installing to an external drive that might let you re-assign the drive letter, or contact me and I'll help you take care of it. This seems to be an issue for about .1% of readers if my email is a proper indication. I am sorry for the inconvenience. Please do check the troubleshooting stuff available on the site: http://hiddenelements.com

Regretfully there is no means for the user to enter the drive letter using the installer. I did not check the box when creating the installer that allows users to choose another drive. I only realized this after the book was distributed, so there is no way to change it now. I realize I am a little old school, but I never heard of a PC computer with no C drive...and I work at a computer company/software manufacturer, where you'd think this stuff would come up all the time if it were a wide-spread issue.


I did say you don´t want to know why there is no C drive ... :ditsy: But the answer - I too am so old school I had forgotten it - was a RAM drive you could allocate to C

Hope this helps the other member of the .1 %

Mike

I haven't ever done that on a PC. Do you know where I can find instructions? there are more than 2 members of the .1% club...I'm hoping to have sold about 8,000+ copies of the book by about the end of March, so there are a few. I want every one of them to be able to install!

Thanks very much for getting back here and helping out.

I haven't ever done that on a PC. Do you know where I can find instructions? there are more than 2 members of the .1% club...I'm hoping to have sold about 8,000+ copies of the book by about the end of March, so there are a few. I want every one of them to be able to install!

Thanks very much for getting back here and helping out.

First piece of the recipe is to get a ram drive that is big enough. I downloaded the basic shareware version from www.ramdisk.tk
and installed it. It works on my version of XP Professional SP2 and claims to work on W2K and W2K3 as well. YMMV.

Second step was to configure the RAMdisk to be drive C and to size it big enough to contain the extended files. Pick System from the Control Panel, choose the Hardware tab, click the Device Manager, scroll down to the RAM disk - it is further south than I was expecting - and right click to get Properties. That is where you can find a tab called Ram Disk Properties in which you can choose 64Mb and C.

I think I had to reboot to make these changes effective.

Good luck with your sales!

Mike

Mike,

Fabulous post...thanks for the additional information -- a great help to me and the community!

Completely lost - this is the 1st software that has not just loaded automatically on my new XP windows computer.

I did nothing but accept the terms and conditions and then ask to load the power tools.

I've no idea how to proceed and none of the here entries here have helped me.

Also I can't read the trobleshooting guide in the pdf - it doesn't open either though I've been reading pdf s for years.



VERY DISSAPPOINTED INDEED!!!


Not what I expected at all

You should probably consult the troubleshooting doc on the website. There are just too many things for me to control for it to be a smooth install for everyone. Everything from your system to user error can be involved.

check out: http://hiddenelements.com/hppe3tool_ts.html

If you can be more specific about the problem, i am sure i have a resolution. i have not yet met a system that will deny the ability to install.

Sorry you are disappointed. At least i don't hide like other authors.

Richard

Photoshop -- come details would help...are you using the elements 2 book? are you loading free tools? There are a bunch of different products...I know you are on PC, but what did you do when installing exactly? Did you read the install instructions? please let me know. Curious to what you were expecting that was different than what you got...and how you know it isn't what you want if you haven't installed yet...

PPS -- the MOST COMMON problem to date has been that users don't actually look for the tools because the installation is so quick. have you actually checked in Elements? they might already be there.

Richard,

Your PPS hit the nail on the head - it had all loaded in about 2 seconds flat!
I wasn't expecting that anything could load that quickly...anyway the power tools seem to be there and have opened some.

Time to go back to the manual!

Apologies for my earlier frustrated email - I had spent an hour or two not realising it had loaded...till now when I thought I'd just check for your reply.

Thanks for not hiding! Much appreciated.


Photoshop It might be worth adding a note about the very rapid load time as many simply wont expect this..

PPS Not important but why do I see little red crosses rather than images on this website - eg for the buttons, smilies, etc...?

Thanks for getting back. Glad everything was installed. You might be able to imagine why I never thought to put in an apology that the tools install quickly. I have it mentioned in the troubleshooting on the hiddenelements.com website. Granted, the installer SHOULD have has a confirmation. I was focused elsewhere on a) a deadline, and b) setting up a bat file to delete the cache, because so many users would likely have trouble with that.

About the image problem...I am not sure. I assume you mean on retouchpro? It could be that access to the server was temporarily restricted. Hard to say. I've never had a problem. If you continue to, you may want to adjust your browser settings, and force-reload the page (PC: I think it is CTRL+F5...at least for IE).

Hope that helps!

Thank goodness for your trouble shooting details. I had Photoshop elements 3.0 installed on C drive and it still didn't work. As I went down your ABC list you suggested opening and resaving the images in the effects folders. While trying that I discovered that . For reasons known only to the computer gods Microsoft power point was trying to open them. When I changed the properties to open with photoshop the tools appeared in the proper places. Now to learn how to use them. Thanks for the book and the troubleshooting forum : :pirate: :pirate: