I have been a long-time PhotoImpact user. I started using the program with version 3, and later purchased version 6. On my old computer (with Windows 98 SE), PI6 ran beautifully. I recently purchased a new PC with Windows XP Home. All of my other graphics programs work very well on the new PC, except PhotoImpact 6. PI6 "appears" to work ok, except when it comes to saving files. I transferred several of my old PI6 files via CD from my old computer to my new one. Upon opening each UFO file for the first time, all seems to be fine. However, once I save over the original file, a temp file is created (with the extention of .#$#). The original file then is nullified to the size of 0 bytes. At that point, the original file is unusable, and cannot be reopened. This problem is *very* reproducible, and happens each and every time I open a PI6 UFO file. It even happens with newly created files made in PI6 on the new computer, then re-saved. I tried installing the PI6 update, which didn't help.
It also occured to me that even though the Ulead site says that PI6 is XP compatible, there might be some undocumented problem or such. So, I decided to look into upgrading to PI8, which I'd been planning on doing anyway. I downloaded the trial version first, before making my purchase, and now I'm really glad I did (I had already uninstalled PI6 a couple of weeks ago, so it is no longer on my machine). The problem I'm finding now is this: Although the files save ok in PI8 and don't get shot to 0 bytes, when I open one of my old archived PI6 UFO files, the same problem as before occurs. I am also finding that even PI8 creates temp files with the .#$# extension that don't get removed once the file and program are closed. I know that PI6 never did this to me prior to putting it on my XP machine.
Has anyone else seen anything like this? Is there a fix for it?
Thanks in advance,
Kim
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