I installed ACDsee 6.0 to my laptop this week because of some strong recommedations from a friend.

I first installed it on C drive. It asked "do you want to optimize your ACDsee 5.0's database?" I clicked "yes" although I know nothing about this database thing.

The computer died after 30 mins of crazy harddisc scanning. My C drive space shrunk from 2.06GB to 1.01GB.

I immediately uninstalled this software. Nope, it won't give out my space. I uninstalled ACDsee5.0 (for some stupid reason installing 6.0 won't get rid of 5.0 automatically). Nope, it didn't work either.

I then installed ACDsee 6.0 again on my E drive. It took only about 23MB space (without optimazing the database).

Today when I was on Tech support phone with the Verizon DSL guy trying to solve another problem (local network is down, not my fault ), he told me to go to internet options/delete file/delete all offline content. I did that. Wow! It gave back about 800MB of space (although I just delete all the internet temp files without checking that "delete all offline content" yesterday. My harddisc space is back to 1.76GB.

I tried to optimaze that database thing again tonight. It took about 15 mins to run. And during the process, about 500MB space was taken from C drive (althought the software is actually on E drive). But 450MB space was released after the process is over.

This freaks me out a little bit. What's it all about? What's so extrodinary about this ACDsee 6.0?

I dunno, but I like ACDSee....been using it since 4.0 (and two computers ago )

However, I use it just to view pictures. I don't do any of the fancy stuff. I use the viewer and thats it. I'll admit the program's gotten bigger and bigger and bigger, but I only use the same part....

Sorry....just checked. I only have v5.0....I've resisted moving up because it does what I need to do. Heck, if I could install v4, I would, since it was a quick and simple program then.

http://www.bargainshare.com/index.php?showtopic=34425

read through that thread, it has solutions to a similar problem. Try all those options, if none of those solve it post back here.

I think that the problem is that when you "optimize" you speed the process in which the database of pictures will load. What this does is create thumbnails that inflate the size of your database. I know that this was the case when I was using ACDSee with my mac.

I'm thinking that there should be a way to disable "optimization". Just be prepared for longer load times of image folders.

I like IrFanView

not sure it does what you want

Good news, after the optimization, my system crashed. There is a COMerrUnknown error. And it jumped out around 25,000 times before I can shut down this damn thing.

All the newest versions of ACDSee suck imho. I generally try out a new version just to check it out, but I always end up uninstalling it. They keep adding more and more stuff to it and it just gets slower and slower. I still use ACDSee 2.43, its still the best and fastest image viewer out there.

If you want a database of your pictures try ThumbsPlus or a program called Photomeister.

The problem is that even if you uninstall the software, the database is still there, and won't go away. You install the software once again, it creats a new database.

What happens is that the thumbnail gets attached to the actual jpeg files as icon files. I remember realizing this AFTER letting ACDsee "optimize" on my mac. I was hard up for space so I went through each file and deleted the custom generated preview icon. Boy was that a PITA. There should be an easier way (anyone help here? is it possible to go in and delete all the hidden .ico files? is that right?). You don't want to open the files and resave them in another program because that will rerun the jpeg algorithm (if that's what they are) and decrease the image quality.

Just thinking about all the ACDSee users and thought I'd ask a question. How do I display folders and have the folders show up in the Details view at the end?

ie I want the list of pictures and THEN list of folders, rather than folders then pictures. Some directories have a lot of subdirectories, but I don't want to scroll down to get to the first picture.

Thanks

I wish I knew the answer for your questions, wuta and willynilly. I am sure some experts here will be the right one to answer.