ON1 Photo 10.1 installation problems on Win7?

[Eigil Skovgaard]

Apparently the ON1 Tool set is not widely used here.

I hardly use it myself, but almost a decade ago I bought the suite and now I am too cheap to let it go. The suite has been a long story of set backs and come backs, and still to day the value of the plug-in is limited to me.

Then last week I was offered an upgrade for free - from ON1 Photo 10.0.x to the newest 10.1 version, and I took the bait.

Since then the ON1 plug-in has been invisible, and the old version that actually worked is overwritten. The installation itself ran without errors seemingly, but nothing happened when the ON1-icon was pressed.

For three days now different suggestions for work arounds has arrived from the "support agent" to my e-mailbox, and I am beginning to doubt, if it is really ON1 writing. None of them so far has managed to activate the main program.

My computer is rather new, OS is Windows 7, and it is otherwise equipped with all the stuff claimed by ON1, including newest video driver.

Now my question:

Has anybody in this forum experienced similar installation problems with the new ON1 Photo 10.1 version?

[Eigil Skovgaard]

Re: ON1 Photo 10.1 installation problems on Win7?

Does anybody here use ON1 Photo 10.1 on a Windows platform without problems?

[klev]

Re: ON1 Photo 10.1 installation problems on Win7?

It shouldn't be a video driver problem, because it effectively ignores your video card. It specifies minimum requirements of OpenGL 2.0, which is ancient history. It could run on GPUs from 10 years ago, so I don't think that's the issue unless it's a weird bug with your driver that somehow made it into the wild.

Do you have a backup of your system in the old state? If so I would restore it to that. I would also make sure it's compatible on Adobe's end. My advice would be to ignore workarounds. Reinstall 10.0 or any older version, then update only as far as 10.0.

My guess if it's invisible is that Photoshop isn't trying to load it or it's marked as disabled. I haven't bothered with any photoshop plugins in years. They had an archaic system of loading at the time, which I suspect has been updated.

I would be interested in hearing what they said in terms of workarounds, but just remember that people suggest some very silly things that are often completely unrelated to the problem.

[Eigil Skovgaard]

Re: ON1 Photo 10.1 installation problems on Win7?

Hi Klev,

The video card is my only worry. It is a Nvida GeForce 8600 GT from years back. The driver is the newest: v. 9.18.13.4192 and I have testet Photoshop CC 2015 with it without problems. Furthermore the ON1 Photo 10.1 installation program executes an OpenGL test. I have also asked the ON1 supporters about this specific driver, and they have not deemed it out.

Yesterday when they finally gave up on me, I tried to reinstall v. 10.0.2 from a mounted backup. Replacing the content of 4 folders did the job. One of the instructions from ON1 has been: delete the .lic file (I guess its about the license) and then the old version ran as usual.
Then I tried to update to the newest version from Help following the programmed procedure - and again after normally ended installation without any (visible) errors - nothing worked. Not a single blib or flash. The mainprogram stops in the split-second it is started.

During all this I have operated ON1 as a stand alone application. I very rarely use it directly as a plug-in to Photoshop. So the initiation has been by double-clicking on the ON1 shortcut on my desktop - or directly on the main executeable file. The loading from Photoshop is still timeconsuming and so is the wrap up.

Work arounds have been -
- Try to delete the .lic file under ProgramData (was necessary when I reinstalled the 10.0.2).
- Download a registry cleaner like C-cleaner and clean the registry.
- Download our cleaner to remove old installations.
- Reboot ...
- Shut down your virus firewall while installing (Avira).
- Download the new version and reinstall.

These instructions have been recommended in different combinations and with the same negative result.

[klev]

Re: ON1 Photo 10.1 installation problems on Win7?

That's the kind of advice I expected. Those things only work if there are known issues. For example an important registry key would be updated upon reinstallation if this was an issue. It's rarely ever the problem.


On1 10 requires at least OpenGL 2.0. It doesn't break out requirements for 10.1, but they would normally specify if anything changed. I don't think they use the gpu as anything other than a dumb pipeline.


Same thing for Photoshop.

The age of the hardware should not a problem here as long as drivers are stable. OpenGL 2.0 came out in 2004. I'm using wiki because I couldn't find the right link on Khronos.

When something like this doesn't work, I would not recommend going through the registry or any of the other nonsense people suggested. They usually don't understand why they're suggesting it in the first place. Just roll back to the older version and wait a little while. Someone else will eventually encounter a problem and the thing is likely to get patched.

I just looked up your card model, and it would have less than the stated specification in vram if you have the 128MB version.

You also state that your computer is rather new. There is no reason to stick an old graphics card in a recent cpu + motherboard under almost any circumstances. Assuming that cpu was made within the last 5 years and you didn't slightly misquote the model number on that card, I would have just used integrated graphics from the cpu package.

[Eigil Skovgaard]

Re: ON1 Photo 10.1 installation problems on Win7?

Hi Klev,

Here is a link to a file describing my videocard:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/2y0haiat2qpiffr/NVIDIA%20System%20Information%2002-14-2016%2013-53-03.txt?dl=0

I read the size to be 512 Mb RAM.
System reports normal functioning.

"... no reason to stick an old graphics card in a recent cpu + motherboard under almost any circumstances."
No, and therefore about one year ago I asked the seller to add a new card that would match the motherboard, which he adviced against. Provided I was not aiming at 3D the existing card would be sufficient for the latest Photoshop version, which was the primary criterion.

Thank you for your opinion.
As mentioned I have restored the prior version of ON1, and I will wait for what might emerge about this problem.

[klev]

Re: ON1 Photo 10.1 installation problems on Win7?

No problem. I did not suggest purchasing a new card. If it's causing some kind of conflict, you could run on integrated graphics depending on the age of your cpu and the amount of ram installed. People who tell you that you need a powerful gpu for photoshop are full of crap. Some of the older integrated chips are not very good, so it obviously matters which cpu resides in your current machine.

I will say that the card does support the minimum required OpenGL, and it must have been an updated release from that series. The original ones only came with 128 or 256MB of vram.