How to Associate a File Extension with Photoshop CC

by Posted in General
 

First let me preface this with the fact that I am a happy Creative Cloud customer and fan of the entire Adobe line. I have formal education in their tools and have used them for more than a decade in my path to Director of Web Services at Lieberman Technologies.

Recently I ran into a very strange issue with Photoshop that I have never experienced.

The Problem

I lost file type association with Photoshop. All image files that I had associated with Photoshop would no longer open in Photoshop by default (.PSD, .GIF, .JPG, .PNG, etc.).

The issue started when I decided to free up some space on my computer and uninstall older versions of Photoshop. And when I uninstalled Photoshop CS6 – ding – the file associations broke. My first thought was, “Umm, that’s odd. No big deal. I will re-associate the file extensions.”

Not So Fast!

I tried the normal association methods to assign the file extensions to Photoshop:

  • Right click > Open with… Chose default programs.
    It wouldn’t allow me to choose Photoshop.
  • Control Panel > Default Programs > Set Associations.
    And again, I couldn’t choose Photoshop.

So I sat on this for a while and just opened from Photoshop. Until yesterday. Enough was enough. So I went Googling (Yes, I use Google as an verb). I wandered through forums and browsed help files and knowledge bases. Until I ran across this particular entry. And the description from this member matched my same pain and the fix (to edit the registry) made sense, because Photoshop CC still worked properly. Say I took a swing at it.

The Solution

Edit the registry key associated with Photoshop that fires the executable to run the program.

Here is the key to edit: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Applications\Photoshop.exe\shell\open\command

For me the registry key value read like this: “C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CS6 (64 Bit)\Photoshop.exe” “%1”

I needed to change it to point to the proper path for my executable of Photoshop CC. And that path entry is: “C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CC\Photoshop.exe” “%1”

That’s great, but How do I edit the registry key?

OK, So I am not going to go into great detail here. You should be comfortable with this type of configuration if you are going to edit your registry. A mistake can screw up programs, your system, etc.

But if you need a refresher (because the registry isn’t something we edit every day), you go to Start > type “regedit” into the run box and hit enter. It will open the regedit.exe program and you are free to track down the registry key to edit.

Happy Photoshopping!

Microsoft To End Support for Windows XP and Internet Explorer 8?

by Posted in General
 

Windows XP. A long lived product, and a very successful one by most accounts. But keeping true to a product life cycle, Microsoft will end support the Windows XP on April 8, 2014.

What does this mean to all those PC users, both personally and professionally? The impact of Windows XP end of life is discussed in more detail here.

But wait, there’s more.

Did he say, “Microsoft will end support for Internet Explorer 8!”

I did. It’s not a set in stone declaration from Microsoft… yet. However, you can read between the lines on the Office 365 community forum discussion on IE8.

Office 365 is not designed to work with Internet Explorer 8, and the user experience sending and receiving email with Outlook Web Access and Internet Explorer 8 may be compromised, especially when used on Windows XP and/or with low memory machines.

Office 365 will not offer code fixes to resolve problems using the service with Internet Explorer 8, and new Office 365 experiences will likely not work at all.

While Office 365 Customer Support and Service will attempt to assist you with Internet Explorer 8-related problems, the only solution to a particular problem may be to upgrade to a modern browser.

Office 365 has no plans to deliberately block Internet Explorer 8 users from connecting to the service.

Looks like a Google / Gmail-type stance here from the boys in blue. Microsoft lays it out pretty clear in the forum FAQ that Internet Explorer 10 is best route for a great Office 365 experience. Does that mean that Internet Explorer 8 will go away on April 8, 2014? No. But it does show that Microsoft is becoming more direct in pushing PC users, across the board, to update their browsing experience.

For the record, I am avid Chrome user. With that said, Internet Explorer 10 is a substantial improvement from the previous versions of IE.

What version of Internet Explorer do you use?

jQuery 2.0 Will Not Support IE 6, IE 7, or IE 8.

by Posted in Code
 

jQuery 2.0 has been released!

Wow this is some exciting news. jQuery is a fantastic javascript library that enables developers from all walks of life. But before you jump in all guns-a-blazin’ to attack some code with jQuery 2.0, you should take note of the supported browsers.

jQuery 2.0 drops support for IE 6, IE 7, and IE 8

As promised, this version leaves behind the older Internet Explorer 6, 7, and 8 browsers.

I first picked up this insight from @jeresig on Twitter.

jQuery 2.0 will not support IE6/7/8

As a developer I do welcome the exile of older version of IE. However, this does create potential cross browser support issues if you don’t know your intended audience / platform. Like John states in his Tweet,

Context matters!

See the full jQuery 2.0 official announcement here.