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Colin, I would expect Windows7 to still have the concept of Administrator IDs and User IDs - with different permissions between them. So I suggest that you need to get into the discipline of using the Administrator ID only for installing and uninstalling software and using the personal ID for using the software. Trying to mix usage across the two ID types is a guaranteed recipe for endless hassle. KEEP IT SIMPLE! Admin = look after the hardware and software User = Play with the software (maybe even do something useful with it!) Further, if you are the only person using that particular system, you could save even more hassle and give yourself Admin rights. regards, Peter

Ken, You're getting different fades every time because he has all the transitions ticked on the Project Options | Effects tab (i.e. random transitions). And your reference to the Expire text is a red herring because he doesn't have time limited usage ticked on Project Options | Main tab. Colin, The project file that you have posted in your zip file has no image files associated with it at all. It is, in effect, an empty project file. However, upon re-reading your original post, I think we all might have mis-understood your problem. Are you really saying that, when you get to the stage where you are ready to drag-and-drop images from the File Panel down into the Slide List (the same stage that you have captured in your project file), all the image thumbnails in the File Panel are white, and therefore you cannot see which is which? regards, Peter

Gary, It is my understanding that all of the Create options except Screen Saver and Executable File for PC use Video-Builder, not just the DVD-Video Disc option. regards, Peter

I've been thinking about the science behind this solution. Two of the "environmental enemies" of electronic components are excessive heat and excessive humidity. (Others are excessive dust and excessive vibration). This fix is addressing both of those directly: the temperature is being lowered (quite radically) and at sub-zero, the air is a lot less humid. Another factor might be that, having been acclimatised to sub-zero temps, the electronic components will have physically contracted; and so any loose connections might have closed themselves naturally. So, a question for Barry, does the device still work OK after it has fully warmed up to normal Aussie room temperature? I'm presuming your home is air-conditioned. regards, Peter

Gary, To send a large file, use a file hosting service such as MediaFire. You upload the file to them, they give you a URL unique to that file and you copy and paste the URL into an e-mail to Igor. He can then download the file from the hosting service. regards, Peter

Gary/Eric I think you guys are confusing one another. Gary doesn't want to close the show at its end. He wants to keep the last slide on the screen when the show ends. Gary, what you have got "ticked" is correct for what you want to do. Like, John (jfa), I have also tried to recreate your problem with v5.52, v5.64 and v5.70beta3. And like John, I have failed. Igor (post #30 above) seems to think it is a possible bug in PTE, so let's leave things to him and Gary to work on for a while. regards, Peter

Gary, This is beginning to "feel" like a bug in v5.6 with "Keep last slide on screen" processing. I suggest you e-mail Igor and bring this whole thread to his attention. If you still have v5.5 installed you could check out what happens with that release level of PTE. regards, Peter

You and me both! But I have to say that, as a concept, I really do like this idea of inconsistent consistency!!!!!! Sorry I cannot offer you any further ideas at present, Gary. If anything else comes to my mind and you still have no resolution to the problem, I'll be back. regards, Peter

Tom, Are the four PNGs individual objects or children of the main image or even children of one another? It is possible that you are experiencing complications because of parent-child relationships. regards, Peter

Hi Gary, If you open a version of your show that you know creates the problem and then go into the Timeline view, click on Timed Points and then select "Set End of Last Slide at End of Music", what then happens? More tests you could try, purely out of curiosity, would be to change the 1st (OGG) file to MP3 and try two MP3s - and similaly change the second (the MP3 to OGG) and try two OGG files (is the mixture of sound file types a contributing factor?) regards, Peter

All "Sync slide" does is to ensure that, when you begin a preview from a mid-sequence slide, the soundtrack is correctly positioned. regards, Peter

Hi Tom, If I have understood what you're trying to do, at the start of your main image you need to position the second pair of PNGs at their start position but with their opacity set to zero. Then, when you arrive at the time when you want them to start flying in, first increase their opacity back to 100% between two closely spaced keyframes and then pan them into position. Because, by now they will be "off screen" when you change their opacity, nobody will see that happen. regards, Peter

Hi jup, If you created the document in word and called it reg.reg, you have probably actually got a file called reg.reg.doc - which, under that name, might or might not work. When you use Windows Explorer (or My Computer or My Documents) to browse to this file, the Type column should show it as "Registration Entries". If it doesn't then you haven't got the file named correctly. Your point about "How do I run it as a program?" has been addressed in the FAQ entry. I have added the words"...by double-clicking on it." to the text. That's how you "run it like a program". Find the file in Windows Explorer and double-click on it. regards, Peter

Hi jup, Try this from the FAQs: http://www.picturestoexe.com/forums/index....ost&p=56798 You should also download and read the User Guides, including the one here on the forum (under the Tutorials and Articles section). The information contained in them will help prevent you from having too many frustrating problems when using PTE. regards, Peter

Hi Dan, Let's deal with the "blue box" error first. This is telling you that an image file that you previously included in the project is no longer where it was when you included it. PTE doesn't actually take a copy of the image until you do a Create of an exe or some other output format. Up until that point, it simply holds a pointer to the image file. So, if you rename, delete or move the image file from where it was when you added it to your project, PTE is going to get upset and give you that "blue box" warning. The best practice is to set up a new folder for each sequence and to copy into that folder all the image and sound files that you want to use when building each sequence. Worst practice is to build a sequence using images taken off CDs and USB sticks (removeable media) since these will not necessarily be available to PTE tomorrow when you come back to do some more work. Can I suggest you modify your basic method of work and see how many problems vanish as a result? Even if that doesn't clear up all your problems, it will mean that we have thinned the smokescreen down quite a bit and can, perhaps, see any remaining problems more clearly. regards, Peter

OK, folks! I've let this debate go on without interrupting it for some time. But now I ask all who have participated - particularly those who don't want PTE to become an audio file editor - to go back and re-read my original post in this thread carefully. I don't want to be able to edit the sound files in PTE. I want to do to them things that are equivalent to actions that I can already take with my image files. I want to be able to position a sound file at a precise point on the timeline - just like I can position an image file I want to be able to position multiple sound files at multiple overlapping points - just like I can place multiple images on one main image I want to be able to control the sound level of each sound file - just like I can control the opacity of an image file (and I want this feature to permit me to do fade up, fade down, and set any volume level through all or part of a sound file) In short I want the sound files to be "audio objects" that can be manipulated but not modified. We cannot edit the image files within PTE (I agree that this should be done outside PTE in such as Photoshop) and I dont want to edit sound files inside PTE either (I agree that this should be done outside PTE in such as Audacity or Audition). But is it such a crime to want to be able to manipulate both halves of my A-V sequence inside this wonderful A-V software? Right now PTE is fantastic V software, but pays only lip service to the A half of A-V. regards, Peter

Peter, In my experience it is very rare to require absolute pin-point precision of slide timings. If you are trying to "hit a particular beat" in the music and you have a transition of, say, a second; then you have a very wide margin of error. Which part of the transition do you want to "hit the beat"?: the start, the end, somewhere in the middle? In my experience, hitting the beat precisely requires "Quick" transitions with no fade element. In such a situation I would use the Waveform display in the Timeline view to guide me in placing the slide change points. I doubt if any of us get all our slide changes "spot on" at the first attempt. Preview, refine, preview, refine,... ad nauseam is the rule. regards, Peter

Mike, My copy opens OK in Excel 2007 but I've never had need to use it under Excel 2007. Can't do any harm to give it a whirl, can it? regards, Peter

I'm a late-comer to PTE (v4.45 in 2005) but I'd still like to wish Igor and his team a happy birthday and congratulations on moving this product from being a boyhood dream to a commercial success. Long may that success continue! regards, Peter

Hi Gary, It seems to me that your primary problem is that there are no "Carriage Returns" at the end of each line in your Word document. If you save the Word file as a ".txt" file, would that keep your line arrangements AND add CRs at the end of each line? If so, this is what you should then "Copy and Paste", isn't it rather than the text from the Word document? If you lose font, size, colour info during this process, you should be able to add it back again via PTE. That's my theory. Does it work in practice? regards, Peter

John, To move the centre point of a object proceed as follows: - In O&A window, select the object in the list of objects - Hold down Shift key - Carefully click on the centre circle and drag the centre to where you want it - Switch to Animations tab and set the Center values to nice round numbers I think it should be possible to achieve the same result by simply setting the Center coordinates but when I've tried this it didn't seem to give me the result that I wanted. Perhaps that was a bug in an earlier beta version of PTE v5 and I devised this way of working to get around it. I'm sure we all do things "our" way because it works and we're comfortable with it. Hope this helps regards, Peter

Yes, but wouldn't it be nice to have a selectable option to either: - keep existing name - change name to reflect replacement regards, Peter

John, I apologise for not replying. I noted your comment about being "off air" and so did not set about replying straightaway (my fault!). Let me explain how I deal with text captions on main images. Firstly you need to recognise that the position of any object is given relative to its centre. So, I select my first image, go into O&A and Add Text as a child of the main image. I then set this text object to have the words that I want (Properties tab), in the font that I want (Properties tab), in the colour that I want (Properties tab) and at a size that I want (grab a corner and drag). [Aside: wouldn't it be nice if we could declare our preferred font and colour and have them remembered throughout our project (and even across our projects)?] Next I switch to the Animations tab and adjust the Zoom value to be a nice round number. I now drag the text object to where I want it and then set the x and y Pan coordinates to be nice round numbers. Now I copy this object to the clipboard. I then select the next image on which I want text and paste the clipboard contents as a child of the main image. I then go to the Properties tab and change the words. This approach seems to give me all my text at the same size (and, of course, all the same font and colour). I agree with you that it would be nice to have, as an option, the ability to set a fixed font size - but then if you choose to zoom the text, the font size becomes irrelevant. And I suspect it is for this reason that Igor chose not to offer us fixed font sizes. If you want to align all your text objects by the same edge rather than the centre, then while working on your first text object, simply move the centre point to the desired edge. Now when you copy and paste it, it will carry its offset centre value through in a consistent manner. Using my approach, I set all the characteristics on the first text object and then simply copy and paste onto the other images, changing the text as required. If any of the images produce a colour clash with their text then I simply change the text colour for that one instance. I'm not convinced that "Size/position in pixels" would offer any advantage over my method. I suspect you would end up modifying these values for each individual text object. Hope this helps. If you're unclear on anything don't hesitate to ask. regards, Peter

Hi Noggs, In that case your system is not set to associate the .pte file extension with the PTE program. regards, Peter

Carol, Are you using the same Anti-virus software under Windows 7 and under Vista? Could an A-V scan of the exe account for the delay? regards Peter