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I installed the new Paint Shop Pro now owned by Corel and I am !

Installation is not straight forward and you can easily screw something up and have to go all the way back through it. Not to mention they have unwanted, unneeded, and completely pointlessly added Yahoo Toolbar installation to the install options. It upset me a great deal to see something completely unrelated, and useless being packaged with a product like this.

Once installed you have to go through an activation process after shutting the program down.

Now the details. The program is still similar to Jasc Paint Shop Pro 9 and below yet with some really nice new tools and a new look, however it is not completely stable as is.

After the installation I checked my memory and found some new items running in background.

A new service called Psiservice.exe and a program called Mediacataloger.exe

Psiservice "claims" to be harmless and several sites support their claim as this service by some third party is supposed to be for confirming that the program is legitimate. I don't buy their claim. First, if you remove Paint Shop, it leaves Psiservice installed doing whatever it is that it does. Simply shutting it down causes paint shop not to work. Here is the kicker! Simply moving a specific file and renaming it allows you to disable and remove this psiservice spyware and everything works!... More than that... Everything works better! Without the psiservice, paint shop pro quit freezing during certain operations, and saving files in other programs were back to normal too. Several other odd symptoms dissappeared as well.

Now onto this MediaCataloger.exe. What does it do? what is it's purpose? I have found no information on it. The exe signature says it is "Corel Media Cataloger" Yet there is no info on it when I search Corel's knowledge base.
If any of you know what this program is, please inform me what its function is.

Back to the main program.... good look... normal interface..... new tools and functions.... Then you get to one of my favorite parts, the Browser. Instead of the Browser you get the Organizer. It has some really good ideas, but can be a real pain in the @$$ to get to load your image sets properly, and lacks some basic familiar commands when right clicking an image like before. I have yet to get it to function the way I like, but I think it may be possible to adapt to this Organizer.

I want to give this program a shot, otherwise I am sticking with Paint Shop Pro 9. Why Jasc sold out to Corel I do not know. This is the most powerful imaging product for the price short of going to GiMP.

Does anyone have any tips so far on how to get this new PHOTO X2 version of Paint Shop Pro to shape up? Is there any other hidden spyware and other bundled junk from Corel in it?

ah dang it! Could a mod please move this to the commercial software sub forum. Thank you.

i like the PSP ,classics，
i used the pro 7.0 and 9.0

and don't like the ps

After trying Paint Shop Pro Photo X2 I have found many of its new features to be very useful and a very nice upgrade as far as tools and abilities with image manipulation.

Mediacataloger.exe appears to index all directories of images, and videos, as well as other things that cannot be run in PSPpX2. I dislike Corel's way of handling thumbnails and catalog's. the older PSP9 browser was far superior in many ways. The only redeeming quality of the corel media browser is being able to have all your needed directories listed instead of browsing through your hard drives each time.

I also just updated from PSP7 and am less than pleased with these 'extras' in a retail product that I purchased. There does not seem to be anything out there yet on MediaCreator or Psiservice but disabling the service and renaming MediaCreator.exe does not seem to have had any adverse affects. There was also the “downloader” component that was set to run on Windows startup, but at least there was an option in settings to stop this.

My other grip Dream Master is with the size of the install – 600mb! That's bigger than my fresh installs of Windows XP. I like to keep a trim system for imaging and cloning and 600mb is just unacceptable. Got rid of nearly 200mb by deleting all but the EN and IE folders in the Languages folder. Curiously I can also delete the EN folder with no apparent ill affects and only the IE folder seems essential (for the English version at least). I also found an installer '”ad769.msi” of 132mb left behind in the Windows folder and deleting that has brought the bloat down to about half.

I have not used the program in anger yet, haven't had time as I've wasted so much just installing and trying to tame the damn thing, so I can't really recommend anything I've done so far. Perhaps this thread will attract other users like myself through searching for MediaCreator and we can eventually trim this beast down to size.

Nice work! I am pleased to read this. I will try the same as you have to reduce the bloat in it. The way Corel has managed this software is.. for lack of better terminology.. pathetic.

I do enjoy using PSPpX2 but the latest update installs a version of CorelIOMonitor and it can really cause annoying issues. It can prevent safe removal of USB devices like mp3 players and flash drives, and it always complains when you remove a DVD or CD from your system. Apparently the CorelIOMonitor is Corel's fix for some issue in the browser.

I do not have anything called "MediaCreator" with PSPpX2, If you are referring to Mediacataloger.exe, I have found that it simply runs in the background when you load new files to your watched browser directories. It automatically unloads after it finishes thumbnailing all the files. It took it nearly 48 hours to catalog all the files I had the browser monitoring from my last install of it. Canceling it from running can corrupt the thumbnails and you would end up having to delete the directory of the cataloged thumbnails as somehow all the entries get corrupt in whatever file or format the structure is saved in.

Psiservice is supposed to be a verification system that your files are authentic. It is a waste of resources, useless, and does cause system issues in spite of the Psi Service companies claims.

Dang...... that bloody senile-dementia thing must be creeping up on me unawares. Of course I meant MediaCataloger, don’t know where I got MediaCreator from, just a slip of the tongue really - so to speak.

I’ve had virtually no time Dream Master to do any more apart from just have a quick play with X2, from which I was happy to discover many things are in the same place and so I should be able to quite quickly find my way around. As I said I like a tight ship and I already have my system and photos organised so I’ve no need for PSP-X2 to be trying to take over this roll. I want it for manipulating images, not cataloging them.

I’ve not come across CorelIOMonitor or any of the issues you speak of. Is this a part of the original X2 retail disk, or an additional online downloadable update to the installed program?

It is in the latest downloadable update.

wow.. so great to find this thread.. I have been a user of paint shop pro since version 3.. and I have been using X1 and X2 on my personal computer and laptop for almost all of my designing work.. I think Corel did a great job after taking over the software.. be it in terms of upgrading or support.. I also use Corel draw for my vector designing needs..

Corel software are very nice to use.