I see from elsewhere a few people have had diverse problems with Corel Draw on Windows 7, but can’t find my particular issue.
Installed Corel Draw Graphics Suite X5 (trial version), Windows 7 64-bit, SP1. (This is on a laptop made available by our IT department for testing prior to a move from XP to Windows 7.)
There was no problem with installation, but when I try to run Draw or Photopaint, I get an error message:
'The application has failed to start because its side-by-side configuration is incorrect. Please see the application event log or use the command sxstrace.exe tool for more detail.'
The event log reads:
'Activation context generation failed for "C:\Program Files (x86)\Corel\CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X5\Programs\CorelDRW.exe". Dependent Assembly Microsoft.VC90.OpenMP,processorArchitecture="x86",publicKeyToken="1fc8b3b9a1e18e3b",type="win32",version="9.0.21022.8" could not be found. Please use sxstrace.exe for detailed diagnosis.'
The sxstrace.exe tool appears somewhat complicated to explore just now.
Any thoughts?
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-windows_programs/the-application-has-failed-to-start-because-its/ef9b01d5-3c18-479e-bf71-a9c28123c807
Try those... I didn't search the forum here but I'm pretty sure this issue has been mentioned before.
This issue belongs to MS and when I did a Google heaps of programs are affected.
I'm surprised you have an issue with Win 7 64 as for most of us it has been trouble free.
Thanks for the response, Yani.
I checked the page you suggested, which confirms information found elsewhere: that this problem may be related to the absence of Visual C++ runtime on the system.
I tried installing the runtime, but no joy.
In any case, the examples I’ve found where this solved the problem concerned small circulation programs of the “home-made” shareware variety (no disrespect intended). Over the years we have got used to that sort of program needing a specific working environment involving third-party add-ons. But you don’t expect it from a mainstream commercial program like Draw; and, bearing in mind that no one else seems to be complaining, I’m inclined to think that’s probably a red herring here.
Open to other suggestions.
The issue is connected to the libraries that are used by MS and either code being over-written or failed to be over-written.
It's unique to the users computer, the issue doesn't exist on clean installs of Win 7. (At least it didn't but code in the trial may have been changed.)
You could spend days tracking this down as you are discovering. It isn't the 'home-made' that unites those apps but MS Visual Studio.
The trial is a unique case as it has added copy protection. If you don't get an answer here then ring Corel Support.
There are a lot of 3rd party libraries used in Draw. The complier, installer, copy protection, Ghostscript, PMS stuff, CM stuff, .Net... etc. That is completely normal and the way things should be done. Those libraries have been in development for years, GS for over 20 years.
What you need to do is decide if you are going to work through this and find the error or stick in the Window disk and repair the OS and download all available updates. I'd suggest that a repair of Windows is the easy first choice unless you get a better answer from someone here or at Corel Support.
Thanks for the sound advice.
But I gave up on Draw X5 and installed X4 instead. That runs without problems.
As I said, it’s a test PC, possibly with an odd configuration. The short-term objective was to test ways of getting graphs from Excel 2010 into Corel Draw (version X4 or X5 isn’t too important at present). In fact I was more interested in the quality of the images coming out of Excel than in Draw’s ability to do anything with them.
So mission accomplished for now. We are supposed to be moving over to Windows 7 later in the year, but the configuration will not be the same as the laptop I’ve been working with. So it’s not worth my spending time on fixing it now. I’ll be keeping our IT department informed, though.
So nice that you get the problem might be your install and just give up and get on with it and not start a 70 thread post that 'Corel can't make software'.
X4 doesn't use any .NET components and I think the version of Visual Studio used might have been different too. X5 is a lot more sensitive to an upset OS.
For the record: for reasons not worth explaining I just got a different “test” PC.
Installed the trial version of Draw X5 on it, and it appears to be running without problems.