Elements 9: Merge to panorama crashes (Win 8.1)

I have the same problem only with Windows 8.1 where I did not have before, can anyone help?

Also I find it frustrating that Adobe are not helping with these problem when I bought direct from them?

I have not found an answer to this problem & Adobe have failed to answer any of my emails. Their customer service is abysmal.

Adobe only supports the current version of the program, which is 14 at the moment, and typically limits support of non-CC (less expensive) programs to issues involving downloading, installation and licensing, not how-tos and troubleshooting, which are left to knowledgeable users on the forums. That doesn't mean an Adobe person will never reply but probably only to a well-known issue that has a known solution, and this doesn't sound like that scenario.

The title of this thread and lack of specificity in each person's post suggests that everyone is using PSE9 from 5 years ago on a newer OS that Adobe could not have tested with, although I suspect the older PSE and the newer OSes work ok for most people.

I am not an expert in PSE crashes but some things to try that have fixed issues with other Adobe programs and might work here would be to:

uninstall and reinstall the program,

check that your hard-drive doesn't have any errors,

update your video drivers to the latest version from the video card manufacturer's website (AMD / ATI / nVidia) not just Windows Update,

unplug non-essential USB devices, especially phones,

unmap/delete any network shares that are offline,

make a shortcut direct to the PSE Editor and change the compatibility mode in the shortcut properties to be an older OS that would have been current at the time the program was released,

delete an printer drivers for network printers that aren't currently attached.

Are you all running Elements 9 on Windows 8?

Thanks for your responses
I am running Windows 10, upgraded from 8.1.
With regard to Steve's comments, I have followed all suggestions, all be it many months ago, with the exception of "shortcut direct to PSE Editor" which I do not understand. My pre-war brain fails to grasp the implication.

If you've only updated your video drivers months ago, there is likely a new update by now, especially if you're on Windows 10.
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As far as shortcuts go, if you can find the shortcut to Elements, right-click on it, choose Properties, choose the Compatibility tab and pick an older OS. Like this, although maybe Windows 7 is more appropriate:



The main issue is finding the shortcut. In this example I right-clicked on the Start / All Apps shortcut for Adobe Photoshop Elements 13 (the version I have installed) and chose Show File Location. That put my in the Start menu folder with all the shortcuts listed. I found the one to Elements 13 and right-clicked on it and clicked over to the Compatibility property tab.

The shortcut on the Start menu is for the PSE Launcher app not the Editor app which is a separate program. I am not sure if setting compatibility on the launcher app is sufficient to affect the compatibility of the editor app or not.

To make sure the compatibility mode is affecting the editor app, I suggest finding it, within the program files structure and right-clicking on it, selecting Create Shortcut, then right-clicking on that shortcut and choosing Properties / Compatibility tab then setting a different OS than 10. Finally, to make that compatibility mode active you'd want to pin that specific shortcut to the start menu or task bar and make sure you're starting Elements Editor from that shortcut not the normal way. Now if setting compatibility mode on the Editor shortcut does work then you could go back and set it on the launcher shortcut and that might also work.

For PSE13, I'd be right-clicking on the following EXE and choose Create Shortcut:
C:\Program Files\Adobe\Photoshop Elements 13\PhotoshopElementsEditor.exe
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You also have gotten the attention of Jeff who is an Adobe employee so if there is a known solution in their internal knowledge base then he'd likely be able to find it.

Thank you for your help.
The Program Compatibility Troubleshooter tells me there is a "compatibility issue for which the vendor has a paid upgrade that's compatible with Windows."
So, that's the answer, Adobe wants me to pay for an upgrade to a program I have paid for and which they have now made obsolete on my computer.
Nice!

Elements 9 is quite old and wasn’t designed nor extensively tested to run on these new OSes: https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop-ele...

I don't recommend that customers upgrade their OS without doing their own testing to ensure that it will work for their needs with their current hardware and drivers.

If it's not obvious, you should never upgrade your critical production environment before testing. Always use a separate partition or drive.

Thank you Jeffrey, it will be some days before I can try this but do appreciate the effort you have gone to to help out. I have not upgraded to Windows 10 as heard of so many problems, but do now wonder if it worked on Windows 8 but not on Windows 8.1 wish I could go backwards. I have no desire to upgrade to PS14 as I prefer just to pay one outright fee not a monthly and I also use Lightroom 5 and know 6 will do it so I might just pay to upgrade that instead if I can't get it to work. You understand computers a lot more than me so a lot of it will take me time to digest and sort out, but wanted to thank you for your help. I will let you know how I go :-) Cheers Barb