Installation fix for AlienSkin Xenofer 2 Plug-ins

[antimix]

Hello,
When I try to reinstall it (I own the Full Registered package), I got:

Attention:
You need to have Xara Xtreme or Xara Xtreme Pro installed in order to install this version of Xenofer 2 !!

and the installation aborts !!
antimix

Hi, yesterday I worked to solve the issue once for all, and I got the solution.
The problem is due to a "technical specs disalignment" between Xara and AlinenSkin developers. Alien Skin developers assume that Xara application write some entries in the registry during the installation. This of course does not happen. The Xenofer installation checks for one of those entries and if it can not found it, it aborts the installation.
Once I have discovered what it was checking for, I simply added those keys on the registry, and the installation run successfully.

You may create your Registry entry in notepad just copying/pasting the following text:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Xara\Xara Xtreme]
"XaraX Root Dir"="C:\\Program Files\\Xara\\Xara Xtreme Pro 5"

just take care of having "C:\\Program Files\\Xara\\Xara Xtreme Pro" with the double "\\" and reflecting your actual XARA installation folder.

Save the notepad file as "Xenofer.reg" and close the notepad.

Open the folder where you saved the file and double click on it. Answer YES to the question "Are you sure that you want to add the information....."

Explore your Xara installation folder (normally: C:\Program Files\Xara\Xara Xtreme Pro 5\Xara Picture Editor\PSplug-ins) and delete all files and folder related to "AlienSkin Xenofer 2"

Then you may run the AlienSkin Xenofer 2 setup package, that will run fine.
You will not have duplicated entries in the Xara Plugin combo.
Hope it will help.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

antimix

[zaphodeist]

Glad you got it sorted out. Must say I had no problem, but I installed under XXP4 originally - perhaps that's different. Is your version the "Xara Build" ?

[steve.ledger]

Refer to 2008 thread for history:

► http://www.talkgraphics.com/showthre...t=32899&page=2

[antimix]

... Must say I had no problem, but I installed under XXP4 originally ...

Yes, exactly. I also had no problems in Xara 4, but when I deleted everything and reinstalled Xara Xtreme Pro 5, I was not able to install it any more...

Probably the registry keys were used only on Version 4.

Cheers

antimix

[ginger44]

Ha, because of the 'not easy' installation of these plugins for ver 4, I just directed ver 5 to that directory - clearly saved my sanity

[Soquili]

I have many older versions on my machine and have not had to install the purchased plugins since the original install for Xtreme. All new versions have found the plugins by themselves. Never needed to redirect.

[antimix]

Hello,

I am back with the topic. I have just received the new Xara Designer Pro 7 CD, and I installed it on a new PC with Windows 7 Ultimate 64 BIT.
After all I said years ago (up on this topic) I was convinced that I would have re-installed everything without problem... but I was too optimistic.

The AlienSkin Xenofex 2.1 plugin refused to install on my PC with the infamous "You need to have Xara Xtreme or Xara Xtreme Pro installed in order to install this version of Xenofer 2 !!".

Well, I will bypass the behind scene story of a whole day of mad technical investigations, and I will come up directly with the solution, because everyone, one day or the other, will have to install the plugin again, and then you will have the same problem.

In order to re-install the plug-in you need to manually write a text file with Notepad, and import it into the registry. Based on the windows versione that you have 32bit/XP or 64bit you will need to write different info.

Here is the contents for XP (and theoretically 32bit Windows7/Vista):

----------- FILE CONTENT START AFTER THIS ROW --------------------
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Xara\Xara Xtreme Pro]
"XaraX Root Dir"="C:\\Program Files\\Xara\\Xara Xtreme Pro 5\\"
----------- FILE CONTENT STOPS BEFORE THIS ROW --------------------


Here is the contents for Windows7/Vista 64Bit:

----------- FILE CONTENT START AFTER THIS ROW --------------------
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Xara]

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Xara\Xara Xtreme Pro]
"XaraX Root Dir"="C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Xara\\Xara_Designer_Pro_7\\"
----------- FILE CONTENT STOPS BEFORE THIS ROW --------------------

Note that the text in BOLD should be your path where your version of XARA is installed. I wrote Xara Xtreme Pro 5 in the XP version of the file just for example.
Just check where your XARA is installed and copy/paste the path there WRITING ALWAYS THE \ TWICE and putting attention to write a final \\

Write this text in Notepad and save as preinstall.reg in your document folder. Then double click on it, and confirm the authorization to write into the registry. Then you can just install the AlienSkin Xenofex 2.1 as usual from the setup.

Note that AlienSkin assumes that you have the STANDARD XARA configuration, where the plug-ins are under "Xara Picture Editor\PSplug-ins" folder inside your XARA application folder.

I hope it will help anybody that was unable to install the plugin without mess the PC reinstalling and deleting old XARA versions.

Best Regards

[Hwy101]

I am a curious Tom, did you contact AlienSkin? If so, what was their comment? Thanks, Tom aka Hwy101

[antimix]

Hi Tom, I contacted their customer service, and I had got this useless answer:

Roberto,
The versions of Xenofex 2 sold by Xara are built specificly for Xara products. We have no updates for the Xara products.

Please contact Xara and tell them the following:
-the old version of Xara you had
-the version of Xenofex 2 you had

Hopefully they can help you with this issue.

Bill Boroski

Alien Skin Software

919-832-4124 Ext. 122

Since I am curious too, I decided to find the solution myself, and used my technical skill to find what the installation was searching for. Once found, I created two custom REGISTRY files, one for XP and one for Windows7 64 bit (an update of my original post, since once I moved to Windows 7 64bit, the original trick was not working any more).

I was able to reinstall the plugin in my Windows7/64 and in my old XP.
I hope that all talkgraphics readers will be finally able to reinstall the plugins.

Cheers

antimix

[Hwy101]

AntiMix, One day I will have to tell you the story of when I went to Buy ALL of AlienSkins PlugIns (still don't have 'em) -Tom aka Hwy101