Corel Photo House 3 Problem

I have used Corel Photo House 3 as the default graphics application on my PC for years (it's old but I like it).

Anyway, suddenly it won't launch when I double-click a graphics icon, saying 'invalid file format'. I can still open graphics files if I launch Corel first and search for the file from the drop-down menu, it just won't execute when I double-click the file.

I have uninstalled and re-installed the program several times and checked the Tools>Folder Options>File Types settings to make sure the file types are still associated with Corel, and everything looks ok from there. I have windows XP Home Edition.

Any ideas?

Thanks

 

Hoorah!!!

I love my corel photo house 3 as old as it is – although it did work for a little while after up grading my motherboard and processer – (still using XP pro sp3) it suddenly would not open any more. Sometimes I would get “SmartHeap Library Mem_bad_pointer" error. I have spent days and days and days trying different things and searching the net for answers to no avail.

I now have it working. I am not sure what actually did it but I would say first of all (what I had to do in regular mode not safe mode) try shutting off your anti-virus program (I have Avast)– then try to open photo house 3 and if it works – then turn anti-virus back on. (have to do this every time)

The process leading up to the above find was the following:

I have 2 accounts in safe mode – administrator and my name – after all the other things I tried I found I could open corel house 3 in administrator but not in the account in my name in the safe mode. Some of what I did may not be necessary but here the exact process I went through.

I uninstalled the program and then went to administrator safe mode and did a custom install – only installing photo house 3 not print magic4. I left the cd in the machine and rebooted to the administrator safe mode. I then rebooted to the safe mode again, this time going to my account (not administrator) and tried to open the program and it worked. So I did a reboot to regular mode and when I tried to open photo house 3, it would not open. I then tried turning of my anti-virus and opening the program and it opened. I turned my anti-virus back on and continued to use the program. However when I close the program and tried to reopen it, it would not open until I shut the anti-virus of again.

Hope this helps – good luck!

 

Hey! :wave

Thank you for your reply. I am glad you were able to keep Corel Photo House 3 running on your system. Unfortunately I was never able to achieve this and invested instead in Adobe Photoshop 8.0, which I am very happy with.

I was very surprised someone replied to my post after five years!!!

I hope Corel Photo House 3 keeps working for you - I really liked it as a graphics application and I think it is some kind of unique achievement that you've managed to get it running again. I was told it was so old it should never have worked at all on Windows XP!!! :-D

Kind Regards.

 

Corel Photo House 3 & 5 launch problem caused by Avast!

Hello fellow geeks, may this info help someone else.

I run WinXPpro SP3 (fully patched) on my 1.8GHz Pentium4 computer. My Corel Photo House 3 stopped working mysteriously. (I like it as a fast loading mini-editor; I use the GIMP for heavy lifting.) I tried uninstalling and reinstalling, no luck. I guessed an XP update caused a problem and decided to try a newer version of the same program. So, I bought a Word Perfect Family Pack 3, which has Print House 2000 which includes Photo House 5.

I tried to install Print House 2000, and Avast! (version 8 Free, with fresh definitions) popped up and said that G:\setup\axdistex.exe is infected with Win32:CIH-C. I cancelled the installation when the message popped up. This is on the official Corel installation CD, and scanning the CD gives the same result, 1 infected file. CIH is a nasty, per my online research, that can destroy HD data and flash Pentium BIOSes with garbage, so I want to be careful. Avast! said what was on my drive is clean, but that wasn't enough of the full system to be functional.

BTW, I can turn off Avast! and open axdistex.exe with 7zip as an archive. I see .text, .rdata, .data, .idata, folder .rsrc contains folder VERSION, contains file 1. Copied unpacked files to floppy in A:. Avast! scan says .rdata has Win32:CIH-G@dam.

http://virscan.org/ showed that only a few antivirus programs flagged axdistex.exe. I then tried installing just PhotoHouse 5, skipping axdistex.exe but continuing after the error. It seemed to install, but crashed when loading like PhotoHouse 3 does.

PhotoHse 3 in compatability mode W98/ME, and W95 gives the error: SmartHeap Library MEM_BAD_POINTER
PhotoHse in compatibility mode W2K, and NT4.0SP5: Corel Photo House has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience.

http://coreldraw.com/forums/p/18901/81668.aspx re SmartHeap Library MEM_BAD_POINTER suggested
Try checkmark "DISABLE VISUAL THEMES" on the compatibility window.
In compatibility window disable Advanced Text Services solved the problem.
- both disabled, still "needs to close" with compatibility mode unchecked.
- both disabled, still "needs to close" in all four compatibility modes (W95/W98/NT/W2K)

* * * * * HERE'S THE FIX FOR BOTH PH3 AND PH5 * * * * *

BUT, thanks to this topic's post on MajorGeeks, I unplugged my machine and isolated it from the net, and turned off Avast!'s shields by right-clicking the system tray icon and using the disable option. Both versions of PhotoHouse (3 and 5) can load and run with the Avast! shields disabled. I also tested turning Avast!'s shields back on after launching PH3, and it was fine - could load, edit, and save. Ta-daa! I switched from AVG to Avast! recently, and that is about the time I noticed the problem.