Appendix C. Installation and Troubleshooting
Elements is quite easy to install and is pretty trouble free once it’s up and running. This appendix explains a couple of things you can do to ensure that your installation goes smoothly, and it also provides cures for most of the little glitches that can crop up once you’re using the program.
Installing Elements
Before you install Elements, it helps to make sure your PC is ready to receive its newest arrival. First of all, if your computer’s on a network, take it off the network temporarily. (You can go back on as soon as you’ve installed Elements.) Also, it’s important to disable any antivirus software, as well as any products from Symantec (whose programs tend to quarrel with Adobe software during installation). You can turn any of these programs back on as soon as you’ve finished the installation.
Also, you need to install Elements when logged into an administrative account on your computer. (If you’ve never done anything to change your account and you have only one account on your machine, it’s almost certainly an administrative account.)
Note
If you already have a previous version of Elements, then there’s no need to remove it before installing Elements 7. All versions of Elements run as separate programs, and you can keep the older version, too, if you want.
Make sure you have your Elements serial number handy. You won’t be able to install the program without it. If you have a retail version of Elements, the serial number is on the label on the install disc’s case. If you got it bundled (when you bought a scanner, for example), you’ll usually find the serial number on the paper sleeve the disc’s in. (It’s not a bad idea to write your serial number right on the disc so that you’ll always have it around if you need to reinstall.)
It’s a good idea to make a complete backup of any existing Organizer catalogs before you start, just in case (see Organizer Backups for information on backing up).
Installing Elements
Put the install disc in your computer’s drive.
The disc window should open automatically. If for some reason it doesn’t, then double-click the disc’s icon or right-click it and choose Open, then double click Setup.exe to start the installer.
Choose a language and accept the software agreement.
Click Install Adobe Photoshop Elements.
The installation wizard (a series of guided question-and-response screens) launches.
Decide whether to remove any older versions of Elements.
If you already have one or more versions of Elements on your computer, the installer reminds you about them, asking if you want to add the new version or get rid of the previous version(s). It’s up to you whether or not to remove them. If you want to remove your older versions, click No to cancel the installation and then remove the older versions yourself before starting the Elements 7 installer again. (In Vista, do this by going to Start → Control Panel → “Uninstall a Program”: in Windows XP, Start → Control Panel → “Add or Remove Programs”.) You can choose which versions to leave or to remove—it’s not an all or nothing decision. You need to uninstall each version individually, if you decide to remove the old ones.
Accept the license agreement.
Yes, you already accepted a software agreement. That was for all the stuff on the disc, and this one’s specifically for Elements.
Enter the Serial Number.
This is new in Elements 7: You can’t install without your serial number.
Choose where you want Elements to install itself.
Unless you have a specific reason to do so (if you install all your programs on a separate drive, for example), just agree to the location the installer suggests.
Click Install to begin the installation.
Elements installs. When the installer is done, click Finish to exit the installer, and restart your computer.
The installer creates a desktop shortcut to Elements. To launch Elements, double-click the shortcut or right-click it and choose Open.
Registration
When you first launch Elements, it asks you to register the program. You can run Elements without registering it, but you get a couple of advantages if you register. For one thing, Adobe hangs onto a record of your serial number, so if you ever misplace the number, you can get it from Adobe. Also, when Adobe releases new versions of Elements, there’s usually a rebate for registered owners of previous versions. And if you agree to let Adobe send you email, they often offer discounts on other programs, like a big discount on the full version of Photoshop, if you want to move on later.
Tip
In the Registration pull-down menu, you can choose to have Elements remind you to register a week from now, or you can choose not to register. If you choose the latter option and change your mind later on, go to Help → Registration (in either the Editor or the Organizer) to bring up the Registration window.
Scratch Disks
Elements uses a scratch disk—reserve space on a hard drive to supplement your PC’s memory—when it’s busy making your photos gorgeous. The calculations Elements makes behind the scenes are very complex, and Elements needs someplace to write stuff down while it’s figuring out how to make changes to your image. It does so by using a scratch disk if the task at hand is too heavy-duty for your system’s main memory alone to cope with.
You probably have just one hard drive in your computer, and Elements automatically uses that drive as the scratch disk. That’s fine, and Elements can run very happily without a dedicated scratch disk.
Tip
You can make Elements really happy by keeping your hard drive defragmented and making sure there’s plenty of free space available for Elements to use. To defragment in Vista, go to Control Panel → “System and Maintenance” → Administrative Tools → “Defragment your hard drive”. In Windows XP, it’s Control Panel → “Performance and Maintenance” → “Rearrange items on your hard disk to make programs run faster”.
If you’re fortunate enough to have a computer with more than one internal drive, you can designate a separate disk as your scratch disk to improve Elements performance. Your scratch disk needs to be as fast as the drive Elements is installed on or there’s no point in setting up a special scratch disk. (If you have a USB external drive, for instance, forget it [USB isn’t fast enough, even USB 2.0] and just leave your main drive as your scratch disk.)
To assign a scratch disk, go to the Editor → Edit → Preferences → Performance and choose your preferred disk. You can choose up to four disks to use as scratch disks.
Troubleshooting
If Elements behaves badly from the moment you install it, something probably went funky during your installation. That’s easy to fix. Uninstall Elements and reinstall it.
To remove Elements, in Vista go to Control Panel → “Uninstall a Program” (in Windows XP, Control Panel → “Add or Remove Programs”) and then remove Elements. Then reinstall the program.
Note
You can’t perform a Repair Install for Elements—you just get an error message that keeps asking for “Disk 1”. (Repair installs are used for some programs to fix problems without having to do a full reinstall.)
Fortunately, Adobe makes very good software that looks after itself very well. There is, however, one simple procedure you can perform if things start acting funny in Elements: delete your Elements preferences file, which is where Elements keeps track of your preferred settings for the program. Deleting it fixes the overwhelming majority of problems you may develop. In Elements, you’ll most likely to need to delete the preferences file when dealing with Editor-related problems.
Note
There is one downside to throwing out your preferences file: Once Elements supplies you with a replacement (which it generates automatically), you’ll have to re-enter any changes you made to things like window behavior (Zooming and Repositioning Your View) and the Editor’s preferences. Your palettes also go back to their original locations; you’ll need to rearrange them if you pulled any of them out of the bin. (However, deleting the preferences doesn’t affect your image files at all.)
The following steps explain what you need to do.
Quit the Elements Editor if it’s currently running and then relaunch the Editor.
Press Ctrl+Alt+Shift before you start the program, and keep holding those keys down as you start the Editor.
Delete your preferences.
A window appears asking if you want to delete the Elements settings. Click Yes. If you don’t see the window, quit the Editor and try again.
It’s much less common to need to reset the Organizer’s preferences, but if you do want to reset the Organizer, that’s easy, too. When you’re in the Organizer, go to Edit → Preferences → General and click the Restore Default Settings button at the bottom of the window.
Elements is usually pretty zippy, but if you find that it’s really slowing things down on your computer, follow the instructions in the box on The Photo Browser for disabling the Adobe Active File Monitor in your Windows services. (You’ll also lose the ability to use Watched Folders and to see added content like Layer styles and actions if you do this.)
Note
Elements stores your catalog (The Photo Browser) separately from the actual program files. You can install and uninstall Elements as many times as you like without damaging or losing your existing catalog (if you have one from a previous version of Elements). However, as mentioned above, it’s a good idea to back up any existing catalogs from older versions before installing Elements 7.
When you first install Elements 7, if the Organizer doesn’t find your existing Elements catalog, go to File → Catalog → Open. Then navigate to your catalog (usually called something like My Catalog) and open it. Elements automatically makes a backup copy of your catalog and adds the number -1 to its name (for example, My Catalog-1). Elements 7 then uses your existing catalog (the one without the -1 in its name). Just remember that any changes you make in Elements 7 won’t appear in the old version of the catalog (the one with the -1 in its name).