• Intro
• Download
• Installation
• Step By Step Installation Instructions
• Upgrading
• User Comments

This is the third version in my quest to fix some old Metacreations products. For people interested in the history, take a look at The first Painter Fix and the First Generic Metacreations Fix

This version solves an additional problem "Tiles: Out of Tiles" error and it will also work when Painter is installed on a 64 bit OS.
To find out why you were receiving the "Not enough memory" problem, take a look at the previous pages referenced earlier. The "Out of Tiles" problem was caused by a similar issue. For some reason Painter wanted to determine if there was still enough memory available on the system, so they asked Windows for the available memory. However, the return value from that call was improperly evaluated (way back when the program was written, the evaluation was properly good enough, but it dramatically fails with larger systems). Therefore I wrote another variant of the fix that not only fools the executable about the pagefile size but does the same for free memory, etc ... in such a way that the executable would never know in case more than 1 Gb of memory is available. The benefit is that you will be able to use all resources at your disposal, and the program will still work correctly.

I would like to know if the fix works for other programs then mentioned so far, so please leave a note below if you find another product not mentioned on this page.

You can download the zip file here.

If this works for you and you find it worthwhile, feel free to donate something for it using Paypal or your credit card. Just to give you an idea, most people donate between 5 and 10 USD, 4 and 8 Euro or 700 and 1400 Yen.

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The installation method has changed compared to the previous fixes. If you have previously installed another fix, make sure to read "Upgrading" below after reading this section.

• Determine the installation directory of the program you wish to fix. To find the installation directory, goto the start menu in Explorer and instead launching Painter (or any other metacreations program), click with the right mouse button and select properties in the pop-up menu).
  You should see a window similar to the one shown below. The installation directory is shown in the "Start In" field.
  
  
• Unzip the fix in this installation directory (if you have a previous version of the fix installed, this will write a new intercept.dll -- to do this the program started with the previous fix must be stopped). Then open a command prompt in this directory. If you have Painter Classic installed, a "dir" should return something similar to what you see below.
  
  
  
• To install (activate) the fix, type:

  fixit PClassic.exe

  Of course if you are not patching Painter Classic, use the "Target" (executable) shown in the property display. You will have to repeat this step if you install an upgrade of the program later.
  
  
  
• The patch is now installed. The only thing you need to do is test is. You can do that by either typing the program name in the command prompt or by launching the program from the start menu.
  
  
• If the fix doesn't work or you wish to uninstall (remove) the fix, type

  fixit /r PClassic.exe

  .

 

I've had a lot of question for people who needed a more detailed step by step installation guide. I hope this section will be clear to everyone on how to get the fix installed.

• You should be able to find this window I hope, if not, simply right click on the program you wish to patch and select properties from the drop down menu.
  

• The “Start in” indicates the startup directory, in my case C:\Program Files (x86)\Corel\Painter Classic
  The next step is making sure all the files in the fix end up in this installation directory, so you download the fix (the zip file) and extract the files contained in it.
  Then you select all the files from the zip file like shown below (Edit -> Select All menu option in explorer)
  

• And you select Edit -> Copy to folder … from the explorer menu.
  

• This will prompt you for the target folder and you select the Startup folder where Painter is installed (in my case C:\Program Files (x86)\Corel\Painter Classic)
  Like shown below
  

• At this point the fix is installed but not activated yet, so let’s show how you need to do that …
  The next step is opening up a command prompt.

• There are a couple of ways to get there
  Either click on Start and All Programs -> Accessories -> Command Prompt
  Or click on Start, select “Run …” and type “cmd” in the input box like shown below
  

• Note:If you end up on a different drive than where Painter is installed (In my case I’m on the C: drive – first two characters in the path shown before the prompt), you have to change drive first, to do this type the drive letter in the Target where painter is installed … In my case Painter was installed in C:\Program Files (x86)\Corel\Painter Classic, which is on drive C: (note the first two characters are C:) and I am already on drive C:, so that’s fine.
  
  If painter is installed on drive D: for example, just type “D:” (without the quotes) and follow the rest of the instructions.

• You should have a window like the one below in front of you now.
  

• The next step is going to the directory where Painter is installed.  In my case go to the directory C:\Program Files (x86)\Corel\Painter Classic
  So you type

  cd “C:\Program Files (x86)\Corel\Painter Classic”

  
  

• Once you are there, you only have to type fixit followed by the name of the Painter Executable (which is the selected part of the “Target” in the properties screen), Pclassic.exe in this case (as you can see in the first screenshot in this Step By Step instruction)
  

• And now you are done, the executable is “patched” and should run without the memory problem.

 

If you already have an older fix installed then you will notice the model has changed from modifying the filename New_PClassic.exe and then launching that executable. The "fixit" method I'm introducing now actually modifies the target executable. Hopefully this makes it easier for people to use it. However, there is one downside and that is that this fix will have to be reapplied every time you install a patch for your favorite program (although it's very unlikely we will still see patches for those programs, except the patches I'm providing). Therefore, you can remove your "New_PClassic" program from the old patch after installing this patch. Also, it's completely useless to patch the New_PClassic.exe file or so ... just follow the instructions above and you should be fine!

Fill in the captcha and the blanks below to add a comment. The only mandatory field is the "comments". Thanks!
-- Geert De Peuter

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Comments:

Yesterday, my wife wanted to use Fractal Design Dabbler2, which she hadn't used for quite a few years (and a few generations of computers and Windows). It apparently installed properly on our current computer, running Windows XP. However, it failed to start with "Not enough memory".

After a bit of surfing, I found Geert's fix, applied it and thought I had the problem licked. It now starts and most operations seem to work; however, the most useful, freehand drawing, doesn't. I tried Windows 95 compatibility mode and reinstallation, but neither of those helped.

Has anyone gotten Fractal Design Dabbler2, with Geert's fix, to work on Windows XP?

Thanks for any help.

Thank you Thank you Thank you. After using Painter Classic for the past 7 years on my desktop I was devastated when I purchased a Vista laptop and got the dreaded message \"not enough memory\" however thanks to your fix I am now up and running.Thanks again.

This patch tool looks great, but there may be a far simpler fix:

Simply going to the "Compatibility" tab in the program shortcut and choose to run the exe in Windows 95 compatibility mode.

This works flawlessly for me on my 4 Gig Vista system.

I'm running Vista with plenty of memory. I installed Painter 5.5 with your fix on a Windowns XP computer and had no problems. I tried your last fix on Windows Vista, but I got:

Error: Couldn't back up Painter5.exe to Painter5.exe~: 5
Error: Couldn't install Painter5.exe# as Painter5.exe: 183

Hi Geert,
the patch worked fine for my Art Dabbler 2.1, but it took sometime to work out what I should be doing, I had trouble (as an average everyday PC user with only basic knowledge) understanding some things.
Having cracked it now it's simply a matter of wording.
I was getting the 'fixit' not valid command - until I realised I didn't have it in the art dabbler folder
I was also thrown off the track by thinking that when I had downloaded all I had to do was click on the 'fixit' icon that was included in the download - that produced a dialogue box that caused all my problems
I read the points made in the dialogue box and wrongly believed I had to do some of the things it said - such as change the artdab.exe file name (artdab.exe.exe)
This part was confusing.
I uninstalled and removed manually the Corel & Art Dabbler folders, re-installed and followed your guidelines - WITHOUT clicking on the 'fixit' icon as I had done previously
Then it all made sense, especially once I had used the DIR command after I had switched to the Art Dabbler folder - cd C:\Program Files\Corel\Art Dabbler 2.1
Once I saw the same screen that you have showing in your guidelines it all clicked and it worked fine.
Many thanks.

What a great fix! I haven't been able to run Painter Classic for over a year (since my hard drive crash). Simple install, Thanks!

Ah! It turns out I just needed to disactivate the user account control and then the fix worked!

Thanks!

Thank you it works now! I am using Vista Home Premium, Corel Classic, Wacom Graphire 2. Maybe its easier for people if you include a *.bat file with the instruction(s) \"fixit ...\" in it.

Thank you. Perfect.

I'm running Vista and have 4 Megs of ram. Oddly enough, when I first got my computer this summer, Painter Classic ran fine, but I had to change the motherboard and it hasn't run since. I tried your last fix, but I got:

Error: Couldn't back up PClassic.exe to PClassic.exe~: 5
Error: Couldn't install PClassic.exe# as PClassic.exe: 183

I tried installing your first fix because someone said it had worked for them, but I got a virus alert! (When I tried to download your 2 first fixes actually.)