Help! AutoFx's Photographic Edges and Firewall

[nkeevers]

Okay, this might be a lengthy question but if anyone uses this program (or maybe one of their others) and has knowledge of firewalls, maybe you can help! I've already reached my limit with the AutoFx people who haven't solved my problem and the Computer Associates people from who I get my virus, spam, and firewall protection from.

And before I explain, this is a new set of disks that AutoFx sent me the other week and I still have the problem. I open this program and it comes up first (like being a first time user) asking me for my name, co and serial number. So I input it and it either says "my serial number is invalid or deactivate" depending on it's mood I guess! The program works if I disable my firewall. Go figure.

AutoFx is going to their tech people and CA keeps telling me to try the online real-time support which they didn't help me either. So, the other day I decided to disable the CA firewall and enable my Windows firewall as a test. Gee, the Windows firewall worked!! Well, for a day. Now it's back to not working. I added Photographic Edges to be launched in Windows firewall but it still wouldn't work.

So if I want to use the program, I have to disable any firewall!

Does anyone have a greater knowledge of firewalls than me that might know what setting or something that might have to be changed to get this program to work right? Or maybe any other ideas?? Having spent all the money for the program, I'm just about pulling my hair out now!:mad:

[Juergen D]

Norma,
As far as Windows firewall goes, you can add programs to the list of exceptions. Control Panel >Windows Firewall, Exceptions tab. I'm not familiar with the CA firewall, but they should have a similar option.

Juergen

[nkeevers]

Juergen, I did add the program to the Windows Firewall exceptions. It worked for a day. And the CA firewall, they have a place to add the exe file but unfortunately (which is strange), PE6.0 doesn't have in exe file so I haven't been able to get around that. So now if I want to use the program, I have to run without a firewall! Something is going on and I haven't been able to figure it out yet!

[Juergen D]

PE6.0 doesn't have in exe file
PE6.0? Do you mean PSE5.0? It does have an exe file. But, you should be looking for the AutoFX exe file... Maybe I misunderstand?

Juergen

[Juergen D]

OK, sorry, that must be Photographic Edges. There has to be an exe file somewhere. It may not be listed in the firewall exceptions. Does it run stand-alone, too? Then you could right click on the shortcut and look at Properties, Shortcut tab for the target.

Juergen

[nkeevers]

Sorry for the misunderstanding. I abbreviated it to PE6.0.

Actually, AutoFx told me that the program doesn’t install an .exe file. It only installs a PGE Folder and a PGE_Plugin.8bf file. There is an .exe file on the install CD but it's the actual installer (setup.exe). She said I could copy it from there but that didn't work either. Anyway, how would the firewall know what app it was if it only said setup.exe??

Oh and another funny thing...the plug-in doesn't show up in PE unless I have the firewall off either. Go figure! Doesn't make any sense to me. Unless there is something else keeping it from opening. But then again, it's opening without the firewall so that must be the problem. I just don't know how to fix it!

[Juergen D]

Hmmm, that is strange. It looks like something is trying to go out on the Internet every time you start the plug-in. That would mean, you cannot ever run it off-line. That does not sound right.
Maybe it has to do with the installation of PE6.0. Maybe the serial number did not take. Can you possibly uninstall it and try reinstalling from scratch?

Juergen

[nkeevers]

I uninstalled my original disks about 3-4 times and it still came up asking me for my info as soon as I got into the program. So after going back and forth with them, they sent me new disks last week. Figured I wouldn't have problems with the new disks but it's the same. I'm without a clue what the heck is going on? I have no problems with any app except this one. Yeah, it seems like everytime I go into it, it's trying to access out there somewhere.