In the absence of having any experience with PixelMixer, I would suggest right clicking on the droplets from pixelmixer and manually choose the program with which they open.
I right click on one of the droplets, select properties, and look through the options. The only thing I see that offers compatibility is "compatibility mode" and that has a pull down menu for operating system win 95 etc. so I don’t know how to set the association of the droplets to PhotoShop 7.
Gene
I just went into control panel>folder options>file types. I cannot see the association of the droplets listed. Droplets in my Pixel Mixer folder have a .exe extension so I am reluctant to set all .exe extensions to PS 7.0
Hey, Gene:
Since I don’t use PixelMover, it wasn’t clear to me the nature of your problems. What leads you to believe file associations may be at the root of your problems?
Are you saying:
* You upgraded from PS7 to CS2
* When you drag/drop a folder or individual files on a PixelMixer droplet.exe that used to work in PS7, under CS2 nothing happens
Is that correct? If not, would you further elaborate on the symptoms (not the suspected causes).
re: Adobe recognizes that droplets created in previous versions will not function in CS2.
Is Adobe actually acknowledging this?
~Danny~
I am reluctant to set all .exe extensions to PS 7.0
As you should be. I didn’t realize that the PixelMover droplets were also exe files.
What leads you to believe file associations may be at the root of your problems?
As usual, Danny is spot on.
Pixel Mixer is a DVD disc and cover label maker that utilizes action in Photoshop. Normally you open Pixel mixer and select what you want to make, cover or disc, and then Pixel mixer will open up Photoshop and begin running actions stopping to ask you to select pictures to work with in your cover design. Or you can have PhotoShop open and Pixel Mixer will do the same thing.
Since installing CS2 the Pixel mixer program doesn’t run the actions in Photoshop. If I re-install 7.0 then the Pixel Mixer program will run. However if I then open and use CS2 and close it again, then Pixel Mixer will stop working. If I use Pixel Mixer to open Photo Shop then it will start up CS2. If I have Photoshop 7.0 already open then when I select a function in Pixel Mixer it just goes to Photoshop and does nothing.
I contacted the vendor of Pixel Mixer and he recognizes that his product doesn’t run in CS2 because CS2 uses a different format of droplets. But the vendor is able to run the Pixel Mixer on his system by simply having 7.0 open when he runs Pixel Mixer.
I spent an hour on the phone with Adobe support and they can’t figure out why CS2 is "changing the associations" of the droplets to open CS2 and not allow them to run in PhotoShop 7.
Having read the additional detail you provided, I’m not at all surprised at the CS2 behavior you reported.
As you know under Windows "files" are "associated with programs that should open them" through the file name extension, e.g., .psd, .jpg, etc. However droplets don’t know which version of Photoshop use based on a file extension of .exe. This association is determined upon droplet execution, where a Windows Registry setting makes that call.
When CS2 is installed new registry settings are created for it. Apparently the first time you open CS2, the Registry is further updated, in effect telling it, "from now on when I play a droplet, invoke CS2, not PS7." If I updated from PS7 to CS2, this is the behavior I would expect (play a droplet, CS2 is invoked). There’s no way that I’ve ever heard of (in terms of a Preferences-type setting or the like) to tell Windows what version of PS to use when I play a droplet.
That said there’s a known problem (as in reported many times in this and other forums) which may account for your difficulties. When some (but not all) PS7 users upgraded to CS (or CS2), playing droplets resulted in this "do nothing" behavior. The problem is rooted in faulty Registry settings apparently created during the CS/CS2 install. Going back to your situation, when you start CS2 it does the "use me instad of PS7 thing" (registry change-wise), but something gets whacked and CS2 is never invoked.
I read in another PS forum venue PS Engineering (or whomever does this type of thing) diagnosed this problem and created a fix, which is being tested. You might want to once again contact customer service, who probably isn’t aware of this, and request they touch base with whomever within Adobe. Perhaps they could get you queued up to be a tester of this fix.
I wouldn’t confuse them with the PixelMixer discussion. It just happens PM is using droplets (or a droplet-like function) to invoke Photoshop. Focus on "droplets stopped working when I upgraded from PS7 to CS2."
Thanks Daniel. Honestly I’m not exactly sure what a "droplet" is, but I do know that droplets that work in previous versions do not work in CS2. Given that CS2 handles these "droplets" differently I don’t know why CS2 will make a registry entry to use these executables that apparently have a different format than what the CS2 version uses. I haven’t yet checked to see if other third party programs that use actions still work in CS2. From the same vendor that I purchased Pixel Mixer there is another product called "Pixel Pops" that uses actions to create photo effects. So I’ll have to try those and see if there is any effect on them too.
Regarding Adobe tech support; only because they couldn’t fix my droplet issue did they not charge me to fix what they went and broke on me. There seemed to be no leeway there. In order to talk to a tech support rep I had to give them a credit card #.
Thanks again for your generous input on this matter for me.
Gene
