great program

Thanks, missed this when you first posted. looks like a decent app. :)

I think it might be a fair, if somewhat limited alternative to CorelDraw, giving you design/graphics capabilities you won't easily find elsewhere, at least in a package that's as easy to learn & use. If you're graphically inclined at all, if you haven't tried using a vector graphics app like this I strongly suggest it. Vector graphics are instructions for your PC/laptop on how to draw something, as opposed to a raster image like a .jpg file which is the result once drawn. It's how/why a font can look sharp at 5 points or 50. The downside is that for more than simple shapes vector graphics can get very involved -- some people take to it, some don't [it's like 3D modeling in that respect] -- but don't let that turn you off vector graphics entirely... treating everything more-or-less as objects, apps like Xara &/or CorelDraw can be great for layout, & you can import whatever raster images. One of the neat things about CorelDraw for example is you can use any shape as a lens -- think of making a cutout, maybe in the form of a star, to a piece of paper that you hold over a photo, & any portion of the photo can show through as you move that piece of paper.

This is an older version of Xara -- I've downloaded v.7 but not tested yet -- & with the free v. 5 I think there are 2 possible advantages to Corel, 1 being obviously the price, but the 2nd being Corel has had installation & compatibility issues for quite some time now. That said, version 7 will have to include some decent improvements over this free version to be a better value than the CorelDraw Home/Student Suite which is comparatively priced -- the Home/Student version is basically the full package minus some commercial printing features. As far as Corel *issues* go...

I've been using CorelDraw almost since the beginning, back in the 1st 1/2 of the 90s. Corel had a Very nice stable of apps, but fell on harder times under questionable leadership, & wound up selling off a lot of apps they'd bought the rights too [Corel once sold a neat, easy to use game development app, a few 3D apps like Poser, a full DTP app etc.]. They also had a harder time adapting when Vista came out -- they actually tried to do things right the way Microsoft said to do them, and wound up with a huge mess... many of their apps wouldn't install properly with UAC off, when of course many, many people turned UAC off very first thing. Long story short Corel today is a shadow of its former self. Any & all of their apps I've tried over the last 3-5 years have compatibility & installation problems, to the point that I try my best not to upgrade unless I have to, which is alas made easier because they've cut back the number of new features whenever they've released a new version. It's gotten to the point that I don't generally recommend Corel for anything to anyone anymore -- I can't recall installing one of their apps without problems in one or more of my Windows installs since Vista was in beta, & I'm not talking minor glitches. [When it was dirt cheap -- I paid $13 -- I thought Paintshop Photo Pro X3 worth the risk as long as you were forewarned.] I bought their Paintshop Photo Pro X3 many months (a year?) ago, I still can't get more than 1/2 of it installed in XP Pro, & in win7 I still get its installation dialog popping up when I go to open certain formats of video files. I can't get CorelDraw X5 to print to my Epson printer without a color cast -- Paintshop Photo Pro at least gets that right.

But even given all that I'd buy the CorelDraw suite again if I didn't already have it. The CorelDraw vector graphics app is very cool, & if you're into graphics &/or layout design you can do things with it you can't in a regular image editor. It's cheaper & easier to use than the Adobe competition, Illustrator, & much more evolved than the free, open source Inkscape. Corel Photopaint is somewhat unique in its approach to layers -- it uses floating objects that you can convert to selections & vice versa in a way that can be faster/easier than dealing with layer transparency, masks etc. in something like PhotoShop, but still achieves the same results. It has decent enough pen/tablet support, I really like their brush on masks much better than PhotoShop's, & I just really like it compared to all the other images editing apps I've used over the years. But it takes some time to learn & maybe that's why it was never hugely popular when Corel tried selling it on its own?

Xara Photo & Graphic Designer seems like a nice, if limited version of those 2 apps, CorelDraw & Corel Photopaint. If I'm a bit shy in praising Xara's web design capabilities, it's because I think some people get into trouble using tools like that to create their web site, then later run into problems when they start to get more serious about web design, finding that they need to use another app or set of apps, finding themselves back at square one all over again... You do a graphic or image, you do a video, when you're done you're done, but when you do a web site you're talking about an evolving entity you're never done with until you take it down. That doesn't mean you can't use Xara for web design, but I think you should maybe only use it as part of your design & implementation process if you use it at all.

I was worried initially about Xara 5's setup, as it added things like the WMV9VCM from 2003 -- that's why when I installed it outside a VM I chose my win8 install, because I know that's going to be short-lived as newer versions are released. I'm very slow right now -- even slower as I try to get over the Flu -- but sooner or later I'll have some info on the v.7 trial. I've got mixed feelings/experiences with Magix, so I'm maybe a little extra cautious, but thinking a year or so out I may want to go with Xara rather than Corel in win8, so I'm looking at it from that perspective.

Thanks, missed this when you first posted. looks like a decent app. :)

In case it helps... just got done testing this...

I used Universal Extractor on the downloaded setup file, giving me product & addon folders. In the product folder, rename "Xtreme_Foto_Grafik_Designer_5_Silver_en-GB_setup.ms_" to end in .msi, run that & the app will install, skipping all the installations in the addon folder. After doing that in a VM I got a message starting Xara that XML 4 was missing -- going to the addon folder, running the necessary msi file in the msxml folder took care of that, note that there was a Microsoft hotfix available through Microsoft Update afterwards.

The benefit was skipping 2 C/C++ runtime installs plus updates, skipping the Screenshare app, skipping the Photomanager & database install, & skipping the Magix Online Print Service install, & seriously cutting down on installation impact. I don't like the XML4 install since it can overwrite v.6 -- I had problems quite a while ago when an install added XML4, & I wound up having to re-install v.6 + updates -- but mileage can vary. The runtime files aren't a huge deal since they're added to the WinSxS folder where such things coexist side by side, but it's extra bloat in this case I think -- hard to imagine you don't have the correct runtimes already. My main beef was with the remaining apps, which in a VM where I can record this stuff, made numerous changes that I suspect could/would cause problems for other installed software. That said, I don't wish to imply that the Xara program install is low impact without these add-ons, but it's nearly 4000 registry entries were less than 1/2 of what it was otherwise, & other than the xml4 install I didn't see the same sorts of changes that concerned me with the full package.

Cool, now I don't need to write a long text - mike was faster - LOL (I too are a bit under the weather...)

I found the info here at Gizmo's TSA:

This Graphics Package Was $90 But It's Free Until 24th November

Please read the article and the comments, there are explanations about toolbars and the registration.
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Besides that, you can even get a 30% discount if you update this older version to the latest version 7.
Read it here: http://www.xara.com/eu/products/designer/upgrade/

graylox says nitey-nite now.

I'm still a bit under the weather so keeping this brief out of necessity, Magix is giving away an older version of that Xara app -- I've no idea if it's a limited time or forever deal so wanted to get something posted. In a nutshell it's a nice package with a horrible installation that may or may not cause you problems depending on what else you have installed... DO visit Microsoft update afterwards. DO backup 1st if you decide to try it.

You can find info on Xara with Google/Bing -- it's an old company formerly associated with Corel, that had bad luck &/or timing... they came out with some really neat tech, just as advances in Windows & hardware eliminated the need. Now Magix has them -- there's quite a lot of info available on Magix as well.

What you get is a database app for organizing photos, a web page design app, a vector graphics app [think limited version of CorelDraw!], & an image editing app [think a limited version of Corel Photopaint]. While it is an older version I installed it in the win8 dev preview this morning where it seems to work just fine. During install choose the custom setup so you can say no to the toolbar -- otherwise unfortunately you can't skip any portions of the complete install. That said, Universal Extractor does work with the setup file, so if you wanted you could experiment, e.g. trying just the app setup to see if that would work [there are separate product & addon folders].

While Magix' claims of it being a Photoshop killer are vastly overstated, the vector graphics app in this package is nicely done, does a nice job of letting you draw vector lines/graphics freehand, & it handles some DTP &/or page layout. The image editor is a bit odd, like Corel Photopaint using an object metaphor rather than handling layers like Photoshop or Paintshop Pro. Personally I like Photopaint's way better, but that's of course up to the individual -- I only mean to say it can work about as well to do much the same things. Corel used to include Xara's web design app with their CorelDraw! suites, using it to help fill out the bundle so you felt better about spending a couple few hundred dollars on 2 main apps & a ton of clipart & fonts. It was usable, had it's fans, but I've never heard it mentioned in serious design circles or discussions.

http://www.magix.com/?id=9192&L=52&partnerid=2&utm_source=magix&utm_medium=mail&utm_content=fgd5silver&utm_campaign=US_44_inaktiv&newsletter=us/fgd5silver/000/ohne/header

or

http://goo.gl/yYsTm