everytime i try to use my pen tablet (trust wireless tb-4200) photopaint x3 crashes or i get the 'has become unstable' window. it works ok on coreldraw x3, i've also used it on a trial of corel photopaint x4 and 12 (from technical) and it was fine so why doesn't it work on photopaint x3?. i have sp2 i have also repaired cd x3, but still it crashes. does anyone have a solution because corel knowledge base is clueless on this

Try holding down the F8 key while you start PhotoPaint. This should reset the desktop to factory default.

 nope i did that, picked up the pen clicked on the paint tool with it and it stoped responding..and i've only had this cd x3 since yesterday, its brand new. but still why does my pen tablet work ok on draw from the same suite and not photopaint, especially when it worked on photopaint 12 and x4....runs off to scream at bottom of garden.. and i'm a newbie at this stuff too so any help at all is much appreciated.

The only remaining thing that I could think of, try deleting and reloading the tablet drivers. See if that helps clean thngs up.

If that does not do it, can you borrow someone elses pen tablet (not the same make/model as yours) and try that with your Corel installation on your PC?

 yea i thought of that too, i did that a few hrs ago right after repairing cd didn't work. at the moment i'm using my tablet in draw and opening the file in photopaint and using a mouse to do things, it's a long winded way but is the only thing i can think of right now to get this lil thing i'm working on finished  

 ok late last night i installed windows sp3 to see if that helped any...complete opposite happened, draw and photopaint crashed on loading. i then uninstalled cd x3, reinstalled it, restarted my comp, repaired cd x3 from the disk...and they still crash on load so i went to bed.

this morning i removed windows sp3 and reinstalled cd x3 again...it works but photopaint still crashes if i try to use my pen tablet...so i'm finishing things with abobe cs2 as i have 2 days left of the trial and my pen tablet works on it! i think now i'm saving to buy cs2.

A wacom tablet, as expensive as they are (compared to cheapo knockoffs) is still less expensive than a copy of CS2 

I know that there where specific problems with tablets from Waltop and PHOTO-PAINT (waltop is also the manufacturer behind many different other tablet "makers"), but these got resolved with the version of the driver that they released at the end of 2007. You might want to check with your tablet manufacturer to ask for the updated drivers.

Gérard