No PhotoZoom in PP X6 / Windows 8

I've just installed CDGS X6 from a DVD to upgrade from X4 - using only a serial number - on a new Windows 8 64-bit machine, and my X6 program has all the latest updates.   I have configured Photo-Paint to initialize plugins at Startup, yet when I go to File > Format Plugins > Export  to use PhotoZoom, the flyout menu is greyed and says None Installed.


In previous discussions it's been suggested that one must have the older version installed for PhotoZoom to be installed on the machine. On the surface it sounds somewhat plausible, but in reality the DVD contains the complete suite of programs and, aside from the installation menu asking for the serial number of a previous version, it installs as if it was new, so I don't think this is causing PhotoZoom's absence.

It has also been previously suggested that PhotoZoom  is a 32-bit plugin and won't run on a 64-bit machine. Again, this sounds somewhat plausible, but the X6 DVD is designed to install the complete suite of programs in either a 32 or 64 bit environment. I doubt that this is causing PhotoZoom's absence, either.



Tony Severenuk said on 04-09-2013


"The autorun will launch the setup that matches your O/S, so if you have a 64 bit O/S then it launches the 64 version of the setup.

 "To get around this, insert the DVD into the drive. Go to My Computer, right click on the DVD and select Explore....go into \release folder and run the setup32.exe...this will launch the 32 bit setup."

 


I have looked into nearly all the branches of the X6 64-bit file tree and have found:

    Programs64 \ Plugins  (empty)

    Programs64 \  PPZoom.dll

    Programs64 \ Setup \ CGS16 \  PhotoZoom_x64.msi

This tells me that PhotoZoom is, indeed, on the DVD, and it should be included during 64-bit installation.

Nevertheless, after uninstalling and reinstalling X6 64-bit three times, I tried Tony's suggestion to install the 32-bit version. There is no file named setup32.exe, but there is a Setup.exe in x86 \ CDGS X6 \ Setup.   

Looking even deeper, I found in:

x86 \ Redist \ Msi \ WindowsXP-KP942288-v3-x86.exe

What is that? Is it something to try to get the 32-bit version to load and work, or something best left alone?

However, installing the 32-bit version seems to be moot.  I couldn't even start the installation because the installation screen said the serial number was invalid and the only option given me was to exit. How can that be? It didn't even ask for one during the 32-bit attempt, plus, I've already successfully installed and used the 64-bit programs - 3 times !!

So the question remains:      How can I get PhotoZoom to install?

(Rhetorical Question -- BenVista has just released PZ Pro v5. Maybe I should just buy the program outright from them?)