Troubleshooting Hidden Power Tool Installations for Elements 1.0 and 2.0

Good troubleshooting begins with a good installation attempt. Even if you have attempted the installation before, please begin your troubleshooting by following the installation steps before jumping to troubleshooting directly. Mac and PC installations are different. Please follow the instructions for your computer platform. Installers are available on the CD for Elements 1 and 2. Be sure to choose the correct installer for your version of Elements. The password, if required is hiddenpower2.

PC INSTALLATION

1. Turn on your computer.
2. Disable virus protection.
3. Insert the Hidden Power CD from the book into your computer's CD-ROM drive and wait for the hidden Power splash screen. If the CD does not start up automatically within two minutes, locate the CD (Browse using My Computer to locate the CD named; HPPSElements2) and open it by double-clicking the CD icon. If the CD has autostarted, click the Accept link.
4. Locate the Hidden Power tool installer. If the CD autostarted, you should click the Hidden Power Tools bar; this will reveal two spinning screws...the right screw is for Elements 2, the left screw for elements 1. If the CD does not autostart, double-click the CD icon in My Computer; this should force the autostart. If the autostart still doesn't open, right click the CD icon and choose Explore; the installer will be located in the HiddenPowerInstallers folder. The HPforPE1 file is for Elements 1, the HPforPE2 file is for Elements 2.
5. Close out of Elements if the program is open or opens on startup.
6. Double-click the installer that you located in step 2.
7. Read and address any installation screens that appear on your monitor. BE SURE TO CHOOSE AN INSTALLATION PATH! (This is the #1 error for installations).
8. Restart your computer.
9. Enable virus protection.
10. Start Photoshop Elements 3.
11. Check in the program for Hidden Power tools.

MAC INSTALLATION

1. Turn on your computer.
2. Disable virus protection.
3. Insert the Hidden Power CD from the book into your computer's CD-ROM drive and wait for the hidden Power splash screen. If the CD does not start up automatically within two minutes, locate the CD (Browse using the Finder to locate the CD named; HPPSElements2) and open it by double-clicking the CD icon. If the CD has autostarted, click the Accept link.
4. Locate the Hidden Power tool installer. If the CD autostarted, you should click the Hidden Power Tools bar; this will reveal two spinning screws...the right screw is for Elements 2, the left screw for elements 1. If the CD does not autostart, the installer will be located in the fscommand folder; the HPforPE1 file is for Elements 1, the HPforPE2 file is for Elements 2.
5. Close out of Photoshop Elements if the program is open.
6. Double-click the installer that you located in step 4 to start the installation.
7. Click OK after reading the initial install screen to advance to the installer control panel.
8. Click the Browse button (looks like this: [...]) on the right of the Extract to Folder field. This will allow you to browse for the Elements program folder. If you need the password information, you can find it in the book's introduction in the section about The Hidden Power Tools. The path should be (by default) C:\Program Files\Adobe\Photoshop Elements 2 (or C:\Program Files\Adobe\photoshopelements for elements 1 users). The HPREADME.txt file should open upon completion of successful installation.
8. Restart your computer.
9. Enable virus protection.
10. Start Photoshop Elements 2.
11. Check in the program for Hidden Power tools.

If you called on the phone for technical support, the first thing that would likely happen is that you would be led through the installation as per the steps above. They are a little conservative (meaning all those steps, like restarting, are rarely necessary), but effective in most cases.

If the installation is complete and you still cannot access the tools or if the installation failed, please follow the tips in the trouble-shooting section just below. Take the steps in order, one at a time. If you get to a point where the tools work, you can stop troubleshooting.

Locating the Tools

The tools for PE1 can be found on the Recipes palette. Choose Hidden Power from the drop menu and the initial screen for the tools will appear. The tools for PE2 can be found on the How-To palette. Click either the CD icon or the Hidden Power link to open the tools palette. To open the Recipes or How-To palettes, choose the palette by name from the Windows menu.

Troubleshooting

Some of the following troubleshooting steps may seem redundant either with the installation instructions or with one another. Please humor me...These instructions were developed to help you get out of installation troubles, so they have to cover the bases—and that sometimes means a little tedium.

A. Be sure you have followed all the instructions in the installation instructions above, including disabling virus protection and restarting your computer before bothering with troubleshooting.

B. Reboot your computer, then restart Elements.

C. Check for the tools in Elements. During installation files for PE2 will mostly be targeted to the [photoshopelementsprogramfolder]/HTMLPalettes/Recipes folder. Files for PE1 will mostly be in photoshopelements/Recipes/Hidden Elements. If the Hidden Elements directory appears in the Recipes directory, installation has occurred. You can find the program folder in the Elements program folder on Mac or PC as follows:

PC: C:\Program Files\Adobe\Photoshop Elements 2
Mac: Applications: Adobe Photoshop Elements 2

if you can't get the installer to run off the CD, copy the installer file (temporarily) to the hard drive and attempt to install. Delete the installer copy when installation has been completed.

[PC only] If the installation appears to be complete and the access to Hidden Power does not appear in the appropriate palette, re-run the installation and be sure NOT to change the default for over-writing files. One important file will get over-written during the installation: C:\Program Files\Adobe\Photoshop Elements 2\HTMLPalettes\Recipes\index.html. If you prefer not to overwrite this file, rename it to old_index.html before performing the installation again.

If the installation does not complete, please take note of the exact error as it appears on screen (if any). You may need this later.

If the tools have not been installed to the Elements program folder, look for the tools on your system by Searching for hiddenpower.html. If the tools have installed, but are not in the program folder, you will need to reinstall while paying close attention to the target folder. Target the program folder, not the program or other folders inside the program folder. If the tools have not installed on your system, disconnect all peripherals and try the installation again.

If the tool installer appears to hang during the installation, disconnect all peripherals and try the installation again. After you try the installation again, reboot and try to locate/use the tools in Elements.

If the tools are installed partially, try the installation again. After you try the installation again, reboot and try to locate/use the tools in Elements.

If installation appears to hang or fails, be sure you have used the Browse button to locate the installation folder [applies to PC installs only], and check the Elements folder name to be sure it has not been changed [applies to Mac installs only]. For PC the program folder should be named Photoshop Elements 2 or PhotoshopElements; for Mac, it should be named Adobe Photoshop Elements 2 or Adobe® Photoshop® Elements.

If the tools have installed to the correct folder and still don't work, continue with the next Troubleshooting section.

D. Be sure you have Elements installed only once and that you are starting the Elements application from the folder where you installed the tools.

E. Rebuild the Adobe Photoshop Elements Settings file. To do this, see Rebuilding the Settings File below.

F. Disconnect all peripheral devices, including internet connections. Reinstall Elements (use default settings), and then reinstall the Hidden Power tools from the CD using the installation instructions above.

G. While it is highly unlikely that you will get this far without a solution, you aren't a lost cause yet. Contact Richard by sending an email to: thebookdoc@aol.com. Please use the Subject: Installation Trouble HPPE. Include information about what tools you are trying to install, what version of Elements you are running, what platform computer you are on, and any information you have concerning errors (and wordings of those errors), along with a description of what is happening during the install.

REBUILDING THE SETTINGS FILE
To rebuild the Settings, hold down the Command+Option+Shift/Ctrl+Alt+Shift keys (Mac/PC) on the keyboard when starting up Elements -- immediately after choosing Edit and Enhance Photos on the Welcome screen, if you are on a PC. Hold the keys down until the prompt to delete the Adobe Photoshop Elements settings file appears, and click [YES]. The deleted file will be re-created automatically. This will restore default palette placement and tool settings, and will delete your color settings — so it should be used late in the troubleshooting process.

Copyright © 2006 Richard Lynch, Hidden Power