Troubleshooting Hidden Power Tool Installations for Elements 5.0
If you are experiencing any difficulty with Hidden Power tool installation with Photoshop Elements 5, this page is intended to help you solve the problem. Please read through all applicable portions of this troubleshooting page before contacting the author.
The troubleshooting information on this page covers installation of Hidden Power tools made for use with Elements 5 on PC/Windows. If you are looking for troubleshooting information having to do with Hidden Power tools and any other version of Elements, please see the Hidden Power pages for the appropriate version of the program.
Hidden Power tools for Elements 5 should not be installed to any other version of Elements; if you are attempting such installations to Elements versions other than Elements 5, the installation is not supported. You may be able to complete the installation, but the tools will not all function as designed. Likewise, attempting to install tools intended for other versions of Elements into Elements 5 is not supported. The installations may appear to complete, but the tools will either not appear in Elements 5, or they will largely not function as designed.
Anyone attempting installation of Hidden Power tools for foreign language versions of Elements will need to use custom installation procedures outlined for their platform in the instructions on this page. Hidden Power 5 tools should be entirely compatible with foreign language versions of Elements 5. Please select your installation path as appropriate translations of the paths shown here in English.
In general, installation of Hidden Power tools will not reduce or otherwise effect performance of Elements or your computer system. If you have trouble with your system or Elements after installation, it is likely that you are running low on disk space, RAM or have other issues with your system that are not at all associated with the Hidden Power tool installation. If you are looking for troubleshooting information for Elements itself that is clearly not associated with Hidden Power tools, it may be best to consult Adobe's troubleshooting forum for Elements.
Troubleshooting Starts Here
Troubleshooting starts with attempting installation. This set of instructions is for automated tool installation that is enabled by the Hidden Power Tool installers for Elements 5. It applies to all current Hidden Power tool sets purchased via download from the Hidden Power site.
Automated Tool Installation
Automated tool installers for Hidden Power tools are created to help users install the tool set for Elements 5 with little or no user intervention. Tools install automatically to default installations of Elements 5 on Windows. So long as you have chosen to install Photoshop Elements 5 using defaults, the installation of Hidden Power tools will occur when initiated without any user intervention. If you have trouble with Hidden Power installation there may be several things getting in your way, not the least of which are issues with your operating system (such as viruses, and virus protection), resource drains (too many programs running, lack of a firewall), and many other asides. Steps defined here help remove interference from additional potential sources of trouble, so please try all of the suggestions when attempting your installation before requesting special help. If you get error messages please note the exact wording of the error(s).
General Installation Instructions (Windows)
1. Disable/turn off virus protection software
2. Close out of all programs
3. Shut down/power off your computer
4. Disconnect physical connection to the internet
5. Restart your computer
6. Attempt automated Hidden Power tool installation using the appropriate installer
7. Enable/turn on virus protection
8. Shut down/power off your computer
9. Reconnect physical connection to the internet
10. Restart your computer
Please read the readme.htm file packaged with the installer before attempting installation. The Hidden Power tools will appear in the Artwork and Effects palette. You may have to wait several minutes for Elements to fully rebuild the database so that all the tools appear. Locate the tools by opening the Artwork and Effects palette (select Styles and Effects from the Windows menu in Elements), choose Effects from the drop list at the upper left of the palette, and then choose any one of the Power_ categories from the drop list at right. If you check in the Styles and Effects palette and still see no Hidden Power tools, continue on to the troubleshooting for your platform (Macintosh or Windows) below and attempt custom installation.
Windows
The instructions in this section are specific to the Windows version of the Hidden Power tools installer for Elements 5. This information is meant to be used in conjunction with the General Installation Instructions above ONLY IF you have trouble with the automated installation and the tools do not appear in Elements.
The Windows installer for the Hidden Power tools allows custom installation using the Browse capabilities of the installer to change the Path for the installation. Custom installation is useful if you installed your System to any drive other than the C drive by purposely choosing a location other than the default when installing your original operating system software. To install Hidden Power tools to any System installation that is not in the default location:
1. Launch the installer
2. Click OK on the alert that tells you that you will be installing Hidden Power tools.
3. Click in the Extract to Folder field and press the left arrow until you see the drive letter at the beginning of the installation string.
4. Change the installation drive letter (AND ONLY THE DRIVE LETTER) to the path for your operating system.
5. Click the Extract button. This will start the installation.
If you seea black screen flash, it is likely that the tools have successfully installed. Restart elements and look for the tools in the Artwork and Effects palette.
Other Troubleshooting Measures to Try
If following standard installation procedure fo the tools doesn't get it done, there are quite a few other things to try. I have tried to order them by what will most likely solve the problem first with the least trouble.
A. Be sure you have followed all the instructions in the installation instructions above, including disabling virus protection and restarting your computer before bothering with troubleshooting.
B. Reboot your computer, then restart Elements. Check for the tools in Elements by looking at the Artwork and Effects palette.
C. If the installation terminated with an error, please take note of the exact error as it appears on screen. You may need this later when contacting the author for technical support. Attempt the installation again to see if you can duplicate and verify the error.
D. If the tool installer appears to hang during the installation, try the installation again. After you try the installation again, reboot and try to use the tools in Elements.
E. If the tool installation appears to complete, but the tools do not appear in Elements, you will want to delete the database files for the Artwork and Effects. You will find two files with .db3 extensions in the following folder:
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Adobe\Photoshop Elements\5.0
Delete both of these files and restart Elements.
F. If you have completed A through E, and you see the files in the right place but the tools still do not appear in Elements, reinstall Elements, and then reinstall the Hidden Power tools from the CD. It is preferable to first uninstall and then reinstall Elements to be sure the installation is clean.
G. While it is highly unlikely that you will get this far without a solution, you aren't a lost cause yet. Contact Richard by sending an email to: thebookdoc@aol.com. Please use the Subject: Installation Trouble HPPE5. Include information about what tools you are trying to install, what version of Elements you are running, what platform computer you are on, and any information you have concerning errors (and wordings of those errors), along with a description of what is happening during the install.
Rebuilding the Settings File
To rebuild the Settings, hold down the Command+Option+Shift/Ctrl+Alt+Shift keys (Mac/PC) on the keyboard when starting up Elements -- immediately after choosing Edit and Enhance Photos on the Welcome screen, if you are on a PC. Hold the keys down until the prompt to delete the Adobe Photoshop Elements settings file appears, and click [YES]. The deleted file will be re-created automatically. This will restore default palette placement and tool settings, and will delete your color settings — so it should be used late in the troubleshooting process.
To Uninstall the 100+ Hidden Power Tools Set
Contact me for an uninstall package.
Copyright © 2006 Richard Lynch, Hidden Power
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