Using a HP 7625 PC with 1.5gb Ram and 250gb free of hard drive, running XP Media Center Edition 2002. Quark 8 fails to launch further than the splash screen even after a lengthy wait. An evaluation version was the first to fail to load followed by a full-blown 8.01 version. The only way to close the program was by using Windows Task Manager (Quark never appears in the Applications tab I have to end task using Processes tab).
Tech Desk suggested trying a preferences work-round, which did not work. The next suggestion was to check the permissions for the Quark folder. As the security tab is not normally present on my system, this was the solution given: ''The simplest solution to get the Security tab in the properties to show is to restart the computer in safe boot. You can do so by pressing and holding the F8 key upon startup of your machine. Be aware though that the launch issue is not necessarily related to permissions on this folder.'' Technical asked me to verify that the folder on C:\Documents and Settings\All users\Application Data\Quark had read-write permissions ("full access"). Full access was already granted to this folder, so unfortunately this also was of no help either.
Another Representative requested me to download the next updater version 8.02 and install this version, after removing the old 8.01 version first. This has been carried out to the letter, but it will still not load correctly not even in safe mode.
Come on Quark there must be a solution to this, another user has posted the exact problem and there may be other users in the same position.