A few notes about the various files ProShow will create and common questions asked here.
If anyone has additions or corrections, don't hesitate to chime in!
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What are these ProShow files and which of them can I delete?
I have a show that won’t open, what do I do?
I have problems running ProShow, what can I do?These three questions actually have closely related answers, so they’re all addressed here.
What are these ProShow files and which of them can I delete?There are two groups of files that are important—files associated with your show (here called “showname”) and files that are associated with the various outputs from your show (these will appear where you told ProShow to put them):
showname.PSHThat’s your show.
Don’t delete it unless you’re really sure of what you’re doing.
showname.BAK
showname.Bnn (nn = 2 digit number)
These are backup files for your show. You can delete them, but it’s a much better idea to keep them around just in case.
showname.PXCThat’s a cache of show resources. Safe to delete, will be recreated as needed.
file folder:
showname_psdataCan be large. This is a file folder with temporary files created while rendering a video output. Safe to delete; will be created again if you render the video again.
showname.ISOBig file. This is a file containing the DVD “image” of your show. Keep it if you want to make more DVDs without rendering again but otherwise it’s safe to delete.
showname.EXE
showname.AVI (etc)
Like the ISO, these are outputs from ProShow—each type has a corresponding file type. Safe to delete if you don’t need it--but be sure you won't want it.
Note:
the key files are the PSH file and the backups. If you open one of these in Notepad, you’ll see that they’re just text files—they’re instructions to ProShow on where to find the show content and what to do with the content. This is where all of those hours of work went: with one of these, you’ve got a slide show ProShow can load, edit, produce output, without one of these, you don’t.
I have problems running ProShow, what can I do?Occasionally you may have an issue where ProShow won’t run at all or crashes when attempting to load a show (if the issue is only with one show, skip down to the next question). Many issues that have shown up when running ProShow can be easily fixed with this process provided by PhotoDex:
With the program closed, delete the following files that manage your saved settings and stored thumbnails. It's possible that something inside these files may be causing an issue. Click on Start->Search- >For Files and Folders... then click on 'All files and folders' and in the top box that says 'All or part of the file-name' type in: "CPIC.OPT" and click 'Search.' The search results should display a file that is located in the C:\Program Files folders. Click on this file and delete it. Now search for a file called 'DEF.PHD' and delete this file as well. The next time you open ProShow it will recreate these two files automatically.
Experience has shown that it often better to just delete DEF.PHD first and running the program to see if that takes care of the issue. That will leave any interface customizations and option picks intact. But if removing DEF.PHD doesn't fix the issue then delete CPIC.OPT also. Deleting one or both those files will fix many issues, but if ProShow still won’t run after doing that, then the best approach is to deinstall the software and reinstall it.
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UPDATE for Version 4:
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In both PSP and PSG version 4 the files have been renamed but the answer is still that you delete them to fix many issues. The new names are:
proshow.cfg and
proshow.phd.I have a show that won’t open, what do I do?Sometimes ProShow software works fine but there’s suddenly a show that won’t open. When that happens, it’s normally fixed easily with one of the following steps.
First, delete the show cache file (the PXC file) and see if it will open.
Second, try opening one of the show’s backup files (BAK, Bnn). (File menu, Revert to Backup).
Third, try deleting the program cache files (question above).
Lastly, if the show is opens partially but crashes while loading there’s a possibility that one of the audio files (.WAV or .MP3) files is corrupt or ProShow thinks so. That’s addressed in the section below.
Corrupt audio file.Occasionally, ProShow will crash when you attempt to use a particular MP3 audio file or may crash while later attempting to load or play the show. If you suspect this and you know which audio file is the culprit, the fix is to either use a different MP3 or to use an audio editor to recreate the MP3 (load it and just resave it with another name). If you don’t know what file is the culprit, move all the audio files somewhere so ProShow will do the “locate files” dialog—but have ProShow continue without the missing audio files. If the show loads and previews, that confirms the show is okay and the audio is the problem—save the show under a new name so you at least have the video portion. Now you can either manually add back each of the audio files to find the bad one or go back through the “locate files” process and locate each audio file in turn. Either way you can identify the file that is the problem and either replace it, or perhaps if you recreate it, the problem will be fixed.
Last edited by
DickK on Fri Feb 27, 2009 3:13 pm, edited 3 times in total.