Xara Designer Pro Won't Start

[BONES]

It was working fine last week but when I just went to start Xara, it couldn't get past the splash screen. The only thing I can think of is that the Windows 10 updates that installed over the weekend have broken it. I know that a reinstall will probably fix it but I have to worry about wasting an activation to get it activated again, which in itself was a PITA last time. Has anyone else had similar issues?

[Michael]

It might be worthwhile to see if it's still lurking in the catacombs of your operating system by means of Task Manager. Fire up Task Manager and look for the processes. Sometimes Xara will crash but won't die. So ther's still a process in memory and every other instance of Xara won't b able to start because ther's still some debris in memory. By forcing these obsolete crashed processes to stop you might have a chance.

Did you try to restart your PC? That's a sure way to end these processes...

[BONES]

I eventually worked it out, it was the application trying to establish a link to the mothership before it started. Because I have a very flakey wireless connection, it was just hanging. Once I switched my PC's Wi-Fi off, it started without any hassles at all. It is something Xara needs to look at because it just felt broken to me and trying to fix it caused me considerable grief.

[Michael]

Thanks for sharing! Glad you fixed it.