Painter3 .pcs file can't open

Someone gave me an unopened can with painter 3. I loaded it up on my ancient 386DX with Win 3.1 and everything seemed fine till a message came up "Cannot open file painter.pcs". The program won't run without this apparently. does anyone have any ideas? I really want to see what the program can do. Valerie

Hello Valerie,

I wrote to a wise Painter source and invited them to visit the forum so that they might answer your question directly. But they kindly wrote back to me instead of posting this message themselves. I imagine that they are very busy and their schedule only had room for the email. So I finally made time to post this for you. (Sorry about the delay . . . it was my fault). I took editorial liberty to break the message into smaller paragraphs but other than that, it is the letter I got back.

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The .pcs file is the Painter Color Set file. I don't know why this file is not being recognized by Painter. I had suggested to this individual that she try re-installing Painter to see if the problem was with a damaged file. That didn't work.

The only other option I can think of would be for her to locate on her Painter CD for a directory titled something like :Color Sets". There were several optional Color Sets included with Painter and they are located there. She should take any of the optional Color Sets and rename it "Painter.pcs". Painter doesn't care what the content of the Color Set is; it just needs a file named Painter.pcs to load.

The other option would be for a Painter Windows user on your forum to email her their Painter.pcs file. This file is essentially a very small text file, so it will be a minimal upload/download.

Finally, as you know, Painter is now owned by Corel. We have no control over how it is supported by them. I can't completely blame Corel if they are not offering support for Painter 3...it is several years old and 2 versions out of date. I'm sure that you are aware how much more advanced Painter 6 is. This individual really ought to consider getting Painter 6. While Corel may not offer an upgrade from P3, they do have an excellent crossgrade policy for individuals owning several graphic software packages. This individual may own one of them and would thereby be eligible for a discount.

I do occasionally stop by the i-us forum and see what's up (as I do with as many of the Painter-related online forums that I'm aware of).Thank you for you enthusiasm and making the effort to "wave the Painter flag".

Sincerely,

John Derry
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I would only add that since you have Painter 3 running on a 386DX, it is entirely plausible that you only have access to a 386 DX. Does your Painter 3 can tell you how much RAM it needs? Do you have enough? the can should say what processor the program needs also (there is a significant difference between a 386 DX and a 486 DX ) If you have the minimum requirements that painter 3 needed, then you probably have to try the renaming option above or see if anyone here at this forum still has a windows copy of painter 3 and can try to upload a copy for you. The can or manual should also tell you what color depth ( 8 bit color, 16 bit color, 24 bit color) the program is expecting from your computer so for example, if you're running your windows 3.1 in 256 colors and that is the highest number of colors your video chip or card will support, then perhaps this is another source of problems and you may just have to wait 'til you get a better computer and a better copy of Painter.

Painter 6 needs at least a Pentium,
Windows 95,98 or NT 4.0
32 MB of RAM (64 MB recommended)
Color Display (24 bit recommended)
CD-ROM drive

If you want to switch platforms and get a Mac,
you'll need
Power Macintosh
System 8 or later
(all else same as PC)

I wish I had a better answer.

Athena

Thanks - I appreciate your reply. On looking further into it, painter3.pcs file and all pcs files can't open because they cannot locate the painter.ini file. I copied the painter3.ini file and renamed it painter.ini. That didn't work. I'll try a few more things and try to find a painter.ini file somewhere, but I think your suggestion of upgrading is ultimately the best one. V. S.