After about a week of Tech Support on an existing Ticket, including elevated Telephone Assistance today, it emerges that CGS 2018 will install to my long-standing Profile but none of its applications — DRAW, Photo-Paint, or Font Manager — are able to access my Font Collection(s) without instantly freezing. CGS X8 and X6 continue to run flawlessly, as they have for years.
The result of today's session is that CGS 2018 installed to a new User Account (provisionally set up to a 'Test' Profile) demonstrates no problem with Font access.
With over 200 installed applications, primarily because of so many that require deactivation prior to reactivation on a new User Account, it is possible but not practicable for me to build a replacement Profile — that is, move to a new User Account.
Therefore, I am contemplating establishing a new Profile primarily to run CGS 2018. (After carefully following the career of CGS 2019 on its forum, attempting that new version is a non-starter.)
Windows + all applications [SSD, C drive] are separated from ALL DATA, distributed on three partitions of a local HDD. Settings for each application and much of Windows itself are backed up manually to corresponding folders on the HDD. Every downloaded EXE and matching Key / Serial Number are stored in corresponding folders and backed up as well, imaged via Macrium Reflect to two independent external hard drives.
Thus, I am pretty sure I can eventually setup and optimize a new Profile.
However, as I have not done this before, I would be immensely grateful for advice / counsel from the experienced users on this forum. Any suggestions, hints, tips, strong recommendations will be greatly appreciated.
Hans-Peter Guttmann
The happy ending: I have nailed the conflict that caused CGS 2018 to freeze in my main User Account. Since the age of Windows XP (2001) I have adjusted the Icon size and spacing of the Desktop. Until Windows 10 there was a native properties sheet to set these parameters. Since Windows 10 I have relied on 3rd party software to accomplish these customizations.For all versions of DRAW through X8 these alterations caused no problems, and, indeed, I have dozens of applications, for instance the latest version of Xara, that operate normally with these settings.
Not so CGS 2018!!
My new local account is now 90% complete. I have installed the 32-bit version of CGS 2018 so that I can retain the use of 32-bit only plugins in Photo-Paint. I must say I am impressed how efficiently Windows 10 [1903] handles the quick 'User Switch' via PINs instead of Passwords.
Hans-Peter said:Since the age of Windows XP (2001) I have adjusted the Icon size and spacing of the Desktop. Until Windows 10 there was a native properties sheet to set these parameters. Since Windows 10 I have relied on 3rd party software to accomplish these customizations.
Is it your understanding that some third party software for controlling icon size and spacing in Windows was causing CDGS applications to freeze when you tried to access fonts? If you stop using that software, the CDGS applications behave normally again?
If that's the case, then could you please share with us the name of the software you were using for managing icon size and spacing?
@Eskimo and timid1971
Sorry for the lack of gritty details. 2nd level Corel Tech Support demonstrated that CGS 2018 would run normally on newly created Local Account (with Administrative Privilege). Precisely at that point — with DRAW 2018 and Font Manager 2018 (x64) accessing my font collections without freezing — our session ended. It appeared, 'Mission Accomplished' … not so!
On my own I proceeded to add basic elements to the new local account to reflect my preferences. Good-bye Plain Vanilla. Half-an-hour later CGS 2018 was freezing again.
Started over and imaged the entire system via Macrium Reflect between each major step when 2018 worked.
And there it was: changing Desktop Icon Font Size and Boldening + Horizontal / Vertical spacing froze 2018 dead.
Here are Microsoft's own instructions from XP / 7 that describe and illustrate the procedure:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2422164/steps-to-resize-icons-and-their-spacing-in-windows-7
Scroll down to 'new icon spacing size'.
This facility has disappeared in Windows 10; however, Windows retains the settings that now are inaccessible. The 3rd party software I use to reach the settings is Winaero Tweaker. Link is here:
https://winaero.com/comment.php?comment.news.1836
Long ago my eyes decided they preferred larger / bolder fonts beneath the icons on the Desktop and adjusting vertical / horizontal spacing iced the cake for me. Since I need my new local account principally to work in DRAW and Photo-Paint, I shall survive this customization-diet! Several dozen application otherwise run flawlessly on my main profile, including, somewhat ironically, the application I actually use to manage my fonts, MainType 9 Professional.
Hope this clarifies the situation. Happy to attempt to answer further questions.
Good wishes!
Sorry, again lack of specificity: The sections I use in Winaero Tweaker are —Advanced Appearance Settings > IconsMenusWindows Title BarsI conjecture 'Menus' may be the actual culprit here. But I don't have any more time to image and test.I would like to say that I do not regard this issue as principally the fault of Winaero Tweaker. Rather, given all the other 3rd party software that runs with these settings customized in Windows 10, I hold Corel responsible for the way 2018 has been coded. After all, one of the compelling virtues of DRAW since v6 has been the ability to create extensively customized workspaces. Too ironic that with 2018 Corel forgot that Windows could be customized as well.
Thank you for sharing that.
I would love to know what is actually giving the Corel applications a tummyache there, but I understand that we can't always spare the time and effort to satisfy our curiosity!
Now this story ends: the 2nd User Profile / Local Account with administrative Privilege has enabled CGS 2018. Good. Windows 10 [1903] moves between accounts quickly and with aplomb.Nevertheless, setting up a 2nd Profile is time consuming and, ultimately, a PITA.All this was on my main work station.But, in fact, it was on my back up / secondary system that I first attempted the installation of CGS 2018. Today I returned to it with a conjecture: a 'Repair Reinstallation' of 1903 (from an ISO) might just restore the Desktop's defaults that my customizations skewed, thus disabling CGS 2018's ability to access the fonts of the system.And so it was.Most curiously, the Repair left intact my custom Horizontal Spacing of Desktop Icons. Vertical Spacing seems to have been returned to Windows default. The conspicuous pointer here thus is text font and font size for Desktop icons and 'Menus'.However, my surmise is that the crippling setting is font + size for the 'Menus' item in the Advanced Appearance Settings of Winaero Tweaker. I'm not a coder, but I'd wager that unlike CGS X8 and X6, '2018' needs Windows defaults for Font Manager and font access / display in DRAW and Photo-Paint to draw the relevant window elements. Thus the freezes in the 2018 applications that did not seem to affect any other part of the Windows system.Happily I will never learn whether this issue has carried over into CGS 2019 …