Dave,

Beautiful work

BTW, I'll give you five bucks for a copy of all your texture libraries (mainly the wood stuff, I really suck at wood stuff and can never find what I need anywhere online).

I'm talking cash!

Steve

Welcome to the forums, Guillaume! Looking forward to seeing some of your work here.

Wow, can't imagine the amount of research that went into this! Makes my efforts seem so insignificant.

I'm not sure I understand what appears to be an ice sculpture at 21:45. But then I understand very little about pretty much anything nowadays

Looks promising, Mike. Looking forward to seeing this develop

Nice, but I picture a wizard's den as dark and moody, not bright and cheerful. But hey, that's just me

Outstanding, nicely done!

Amazing work!

From one Steve to another, I must say that this is one of the most impressive pieces of work I have seen here on the forums. You, sir, are an artist!

@juju said:

@hellnbak said:

I've got everything almost ready to install a new C drive (Samsung 850 Pro, my SSD of choice), I'll tackle that this afternoon.

Good choice on the SSD! Please tell me it is the PCIE version and not the SATA version, it's much quicker.

No, I'm just sticking with the SATA version. Yes, the PCIE is much faster, but it's speed that I don't really need. I do no gaming or anything like that. Just old-fart stuff

Well, just out of curiosity I uninstalled 2015, then (I thought) reinstalled it. The thumbnails were fine, but the program itself was driving me nuts. Finally I realized that I had mistakenly installed 2017

So, uninstalled that and then installed 2015. Thumbnails are still fine.

I'm going to install a new C drive anyway, for various reasons.

@juju said:

@hellnbak said:

@juju said:

Try re-doing the file association, take a look a this post of mine.

I'd love to take a look at it, but for some reason it says that I'm not authorized...

[attachment=2:101pwnak]<!-- ia2 -->2018-03-09_183202.png<!-- ia2 -->[/attachment:101pwnak]

that is strange, seeing you are a premium member, maybe contact Rich O'Brien to take a look...

I'll quote my post below:
"Presumably you're on a Windows 10 machine?

Find any SKP file, right click on it, go to "open with", select choose another app, under other options select more apps, scroll to the bottom and select "look for another app on the PC, navigate to SketchUp 2017 EXE file location, select open.

That should do the trick."

Even if you're on an earlier Windows OS, much the same process would apply.

Thanks juju,

Actually I had already done that (Win 7 Pro), and the only difference was that the thumbnails went from looking like this....
[attachment=1:101pwnak]<!-- ia1 -->2018-03-09_054606.png<!-- ia1 -->[/attachment:101pwnak]
to this...
[attachment=0:101pwnak]<!-- ia0 -->2018-03-09_055452.png<!-- ia0 -->[/attachment:101pwnak]

The thumbnails are my only real concern. Even tho for whatever reason it gives me the option of opening the file in either 2013 or 2015, if I just double click on the file it opens with 2015 just fine. So there's no real problem there, but I need to see the thumbnails.

I've got everything almost ready to install a new C drive (Samsung 850 Pro, my SSD of choice), I'll tackle that this afternoon.

I really appreciate your help with this.

Steve

Well, doesn't matter, I've decided to replace my C drive and start everything from scratch. Something I do every now and then, and it's overdue. Looks like the next few days are spoken for

@juju said:

Try re-doing the file association, take a look a this post of mine.

I'd love to take a look at it, but for some reason it says that I'm not authorized...

I've been using SU 2015 for a long time, but recently (for reasons that I won't go into) I also installed SU 2013. Only used it for an hour or so, then uninstalled it. I used Iobit Uninstaller, which did a deep scan to remove all traces of the program.

Unfortunately, my supposedly super-smart computer doesn't seem to realize that the program is no longer there. Whenever I open a project folder now, instead of thumbnails I see this....

I can click on one and it does open with 2015 ok, but when I save it still shows only the emblem, not the thumbnail.

And when I right click on one it gives me option of opening it in either 2013 or 2015....

I have done a thorough search of my C drive to see if some remnant might remain of 2013, but found nothing. Any ideas or suggestions????

Yay, something with wheels!

Looking good, Mike. I'm curious as to why you say you might have gone too small (assuming the driver can fit comfortably in it).

Also curious about the object protruding from the front. A laser maybe?

Keep at it!

Steve

TIG,

I bow to your expertise, and will reinstall SU at some point. For now it is working well, no more SKB's, no problems.

I still do not understand why, of the many times and many computers I have installed SU on over the years, without using "run as administrator", it did not cause problems with these installs. I am not questioning the wisdom or correctness of your advice and recommendations, I'm certainly not qualified to do that. I just like to understand the whys and wherefores of things when I can. I guess I could just chalk it up to being lucky, but that's just not the way things go for me

Again, thanks

Steve

TIG,

Well I gave your suggestion a try, but......

I AM logged in as Administrator, and I DID click on "run as administrator" when starting the repair.

I think I will just let things go for now, and if it does start to give me problems I will do a reinstall of SU.

thanks again,

Steve

@dave r said:

I asked what version of WINDOWS?

oops...Windows 7 Pro, all I ever use (except my main laptop does have Win 8 on it, kept it just out of curiosity and haven't been bothered by it enuf to go to the trouble of switching it to Win 7)

@dave r said:

The correct way to install SketchUp is to right click on the installer and choose run as administrator.

Yes, I will do that for any future installs. Thanks.

Steve

@tig said:

Making numerical SKB backup files, is not normal behavior.
What happens when you have your Preferences set to make SKB backups, is that when you save your model the previous version of its SKP is renamed briefly as a numerical SKB, the model is saved as an updated SKP: if there is a preexisting named-SKB its deleted and the latest numerical SKB is then renamed with the correct name, so you have an up to date SKP and a a SKB one saved-version behind...

Not sure I understand all this (my knowledge of SU is only a tiny fraction of pretty much everyone here on the forums), but my preferences are not set to make SKB backups, in fact I see no option to do so....

...maybe this is an option in Pro, I only have Make, but regardless I can't understand why anybody would want to save their backups as SKB's

@tig said:

If you have not installed SketchUp properly it can cause all sorts of weirdness.
Perhaps SketchUp has insufficient rights to do this process...
To install it correctly, close SketchUp.
Now find the SketchUp installer exe file [probably i your Downloads folder].
Select its icon and right-click > context-menu > "Run as administrator".
When prompted choose "Repair".
Restart SketchUp and see if it's improved.

All I can say is that I installed and set up SU just the same as I have always done it. Install the program, select a template, install the extensions, arrange the toolbars, set up all the shortcuts, etc. It works fine, no problems at all except for the SKB thing. And that only started after I had been working on the model for quite a while. Keep in mind that my setup of SU is probably much simpler than most people here, very few extensions, nothing fancy, very basic. It's all I need.

As far as "repairing" my SU install, would that affect anything that I have set up (shortcuts, toolbar setup, etc)?

And as I have mentioned, I have never used "Run as administrator" when installing SU. I have never seen anything about that in the forums, nor has it ever caused a problem for me. Not saying that it shouldn't be done that way, I'm just saying it has never caused a problem for me.

@tig said:

Another cause of these numerical SKB files not getting renamed properly is that you might be working on a model file located on a remote server etc, so the process gets timed out.
You should always work on local files wherever possible.
Also check that the folder containing the model's SKP and the SKB files has its Permissions set to not limit access to 'others' etc...

No remote server, just local files, as always. And my Permissions are not limited, just the same as always.

The recurring theme here is "just the same as always". I'm not unfamiliar with installing a new C drive, over the years I have done it regularly, and I have a well-defined system for doing it with minimum fuss and hassles. Has always worked for me.

As a final note, I have continued to work on this model since I started this tread, and no more SKB's have been produced. Not saying it won't occur again, but even if it does it is no big deal for me as long as my regular saves and autosaves continue to work ok, unless other problems start to show up. Depending on the severity of those problems I may have to uninstall SU and start from scratch. Would rather not have to do that but not the end of the world (as we know it)

Your advice and suggestions are much appreciated TIG.

Happy holidays

Steve