Xara slow to open

Xara has always been a bit slow to open for me since the last couple of upgrades but I got used to it. As I've got a spare monitor I decided to attached it to my PC (i5 CPU, 16gb ram and some fans) to see if two monitors was anything other than simply being a bit showy. Since attaching the second display, one via HDMI the other DVI) Xara Designer Pro has gone from being a bit slow (30 seconds or so maybe) to click on the icon and go and cook a meal slow. Has anyone any experience with more than one monitor and has it affected Xara's opening times? I've tried telling the PC to ignore the second display to get back to normality and we are still in the two minute area to open Xara which is unusable. I should mention the primary monitor is now connected via HDMI rather than DVI as there was no HDMI connection on the older spare monitor. It hasn't effected Photoshop or Lightroom opening times or for that matter any other software in use.

I was running XDP11 on Windows 32bit, in a virtual machine. I don't think the virtual machine was the issue. But... Xara used to take ages to start up.

Now I'm running XDP11 on a new Windows 64bit Laptop, and I can start XDP11 64bit version or the 32bit version - they both start up as quick as you like.

Well I've given up on the dual monitor set up, (in case that was the problem somehow) and effectively returned to how the PC was set up this morning, but Xara is still glacial in opening, 2 to 3 minutes. I uninstalled and reinstalled Xara, always a mind numbingly tedious exercise because of having to recreate the toolbars as you like them, but still unusably slow to open.

Have you tried starting as the administrator! (only joking).


With Photo & Graphic Designer something I discovered a while back that can drastically effect startup time and even completely stop it from starting*, is if I were to change the display resolution whilst the program is running. The only way back is to revert to the original resolution, start the programme, then close it again. Then make the display resolution change.

Reckon it might be worth raising a ticket with the Xara developers to see if they can suggest something.

*it could be that after two or three minutes I gave up and crashed out of the programme.

As I was frustrated with the whole sorry affair and had reached my messing about with technology time limit, I simply returned the set up to how it had been before the messing about started and then did a system roll back to a restore point the day before, which recovered everything to how it had previously been. Later on in the evening, as I'd nothing better to do with my life, I re-attached the second monitor, checking the Xara opening time as I went and all was well this time. In fact after the operating system subsequently reinstalled an update, Xara seemed to open a little faster than it did originally, so all's well with the world and I have a second monitor attached that I now need to work out what possible use I have for.

I find having one monitor for the document, and another monitor for the alignment, gallery and other dialogs a good way to work - unfortunately you cannot float xara document windows outside of the UI though, just the dialogs, so snapping one view to one monitor and a new view to the second is a pigs ear

As well as the galleries I also keep a windows file browser window open on the second monitior so I have easy access to search for files without having to have them added to the designs gallery. this also gives me the benefit of having nested folders pinned to the quick access bar.

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Originally Posted by masque

Well I've given up on the dual monitor set up, (in case that was the problem somehow) and effectively returned to how the PC was set up this morning, but Xara is still glacial in opening, 2 to 3 minutes. I uninstalled and reinstalled Xara, always a mind numbingly tedious exercise because of having to recreate the toolbars as you like them, but still unusably slow to open.

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Maybe upgrading your PC would make it better.