I can recall many fraught hours during beta testing struggling to get Draw 18 to correctly register OLE during the installation process. If it's not correct Draw won't function as an OLE server breaking the link to PP and ThumbsPlus which uses OLE to create highly detailed thumbnails of .CDR files.
Now I'm installing on Windows 11 and I'm getting the same problem. I installed Trace v12 and CorelDrawX5 using compatibility settings, then followed with 2018. After installing the Reg key for CorelDraw.Automation points to X5. So installed the 32bit version of 2018 as that worked well previously in win7. Still no dice.
Uninstalled X5 and no key exists for CorelDraw.Automation. nowt, nada, zero. Repaired 2018 still nothing.
Could someone with 2018 please examine their registry under Software/Classes CorelDraw.Automation and if it says CorelDraw.Graphic.20 could you please export that whole key and post it here, I'm going to have to get brutal with it.
Thanks
I have CorelDRAW X6 - 2023 installed on Windows 11 and they all work. X6 of course is old enough it is not the happiest, but it works mostly. hehe.
Here is the export of the registry you wanted. If you need anything else, let me know. CorelDRAW 2018 Registry Entries
-Shelby
Thanks Shelby, unfortunately the key thats missing for me is
\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\CorelDRAW.Automation. Could you possibly have a look in there?
Ta
Here is what I have for that:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\CorelDRAW.Automation]@=""
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\CorelDRAW.Automation\CLSID]@="{E50F4D71-658D-6CB7-42D2-7ECDA05AEDE3}"
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\CorelDRAW.Automation\CurVer]@="CorelDRAW.Automation.16"
Thanks Shelby. I had to reboot my old machine to setup Remote Desktop Services as I still need to get at stuff so I had a peek in the Reg there and its pointing to 15. Even though OLE calls from ThumbsPlus start a 2018 32bit instance.[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\CorelDRAW.Automation]@=""[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\CorelDRAW.Automation\CLSID]@="{E8AF09BE-9B98-4B94-9FA1-193490653AE7}"[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\CorelDRAW.Automation\CurVer]@="CorelDRAW.Automation.15"
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\CorelDRAW.Automation.15]@=""[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\CorelDRAW.Automation.15\CLSID]@="{E8AF09BE-9B98-4B94-9FA1-193490653AE7}"
Everything points to X5. Examining that CLSID reveals this
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\Wow6432Node\CLSID\{E8AF09BE-9B98-4B94-9FA1-193490653AE7}]@="CorelDRAW.Automation.15""AppID"="{DA9101CC-1C31-495f-9B38-32B0B5E4AC1C}"[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\Wow6432Node\CLSID\{E8AF09BE-9B98-4B94-9FA1-193490653AE7}\InprocHandler32]@="ole32.dll"[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\Wow6432Node\CLSID\{E8AF09BE-9B98-4B94-9FA1-193490653AE7}\LocalServer32]@="\"d:\\CorelDrawX5\\Programs\\CorelDRW.exe\" /Automation"[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\Wow6432Node\CLSID\{E8AF09BE-9B98-4B94-9FA1-193490653AE7}\ProgID]@="CorelDRAW.Automation.15"[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\Wow6432Node\CLSID\{E8AF09BE-9B98-4B94-9FA1-193490653AE7}\TypeLib]@="{FBF4300F-D921-11D1-B806-00A0C90646A9}"[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\Wow6432Node\CLSID\{E8AF09BE-9B98-4B94-9FA1-193490653AE7}\VersionIndependentProgID]@="CorelDRAW.Automation"
So I am none the wiser as OLE works fine on the computer with these entries. I fear I am on a losing battle with this. I always had no end of trouble through the beta round trying to get OLE to work properly but the ThumbsPlus link to Draw is so niche Corel didn't see fit to explore the problem. Not sure where i go from here. Thanks for your assistance though.
The more I search the registry the more convoluted it becomes. Eventually following the CLSID references we end up back at this
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Classes\AppID\CorelDRW.exe]"AppID"="{DA9101CC-1C31-495f-9B38-32B0B5E4AC1C}"
Where the AppID is found referenced by many prior keys and it suggests that no matter what version is quoted, a file called CorelDRW.exe gets executed. And I'd guess that would be the last installed version of that exe. I don't know enough about any of this to wade my way through it to either make sense of it or to force that maze of references onto a new machine