Turn the camera off.
Turn the flash on and set to Manual Mode.
Set the camera to Manual Mode, then turn on.
The flash will remain in manual mode.

The flash should remain in manual mode.

Hmmm, re-read your post and missed that you had the camera in manual.
Sounds like something is wrong. It seems that I can actually set the flash into Manual mode even after the camera is already on with my K7. I recall the K10D required the half-backwards power-on sequence.

Is less than 30sec per exposure good for stacking of night time photos?
I might be trying to get star rails in the next week or so, but am not going to sit through dark frame subtraction of fifteen minutes to two hours! I'd like to use the K7, but will likely have to fall back to the K10 unless stacking is useful. I just thought there probably would not be enough light captured in under 30 seconds to even make stacking worthwhile.

It really pissed me off that Pentax has this requirement (amongst other cripplings). I mean I can do dark frame subtraction myself after the fact with one frame rather than every time I click the shutter! Its like Pentax dangles a pro-level camera in front of your face, and just as you reach out to grab it, they kick you in the shins.

You must have been to one of the big box stores? No self-respecting photographer hasn't heard of those.
Sadly, the small "real" photo stores are becoming harder to find. I only know of one in about a fifty mile radius from where I live. I fear the day when customer service is run out of town by Amazon's pricing and that shop closes.

Sadly, with the K7 this cannot be fully turned off, probably the same with Kx (I believe K20 is the same way).
As I understand, in ANY bulb photo over 30 seconds the frame subtraction is forced!
In some photos over the specified maximum ISO and shutter speed, this also happen. I do believe this action is what can be turned off. At least I have not yet seen the dark frame subtraction come on... but I stay away from Bulb mode over 30 seconds on that camera. I go back to my K10D for very long shutter speeds.

It doesn't look like sensor dust, but if that is the environment in which he keeps his stuff, I've seen enough regardless.

How much awry is it?

Do the colors also go awry when you open them directly from PSE rather than through Pentax Browser? It sounds like they are OK but changes you make in Camera RAW do not stay when finally opened in PSE?

Dunno if PSE has any similar behavioral problems as its bigger brother CS, but PhotoShop can have some really bizarre issues when the user preferences get screwed up. Some time ago I could draw ONLY in Blue... even on gray scale images, masks and channels!! Took me a week to get the issue resolved!
More recently one single feature would repeatedly crash.

Removing the preferences files fixed the problems in both instances. (note that simply uninstalling and reinstalling PS/PSE had no effect since the preference files still remained)
It might be worth contacting Adobe if you cannot find the preference files and see if that helps in any way.

No problem moving SilkyPix to another machine. At least no technical trouble. I moved it to my laptop after I got the Mac to replace my desktop.

Have to Agree... Adobe is worse with licensing.
They do kindly allow to install the both LR and PS software on more than one machine as long as you only have as many in use at one time as you have licenses. For LightRoom this may be across both Windows and Mac.

For PhotoShop, in order to switch platforms you have to call them, be harassed about why you want to switch to another platform, make promises that you will destroy old copies and that you will take all necessary steps to ensure the old copy is non-retrievable, print and sign a form that has to be physically mailed to them (preferably signed in human blood, although it does not need to be your own). On top of it all they charge you some insulting amount (maybe $20) to transfer the license. This is for a $600 product!
I think somewhere in the legaleese they reserved the right to take your right testicle if you so much as recall using the software on the old machine.

SilkyPix wasn't much better in the end, but at least they were blunt and just said "NO". Hopefully they've changed since then, or maybe it was just a US thing. erg...

Yeah, sadly neither of those options give quite the same result as SilkyPix's color options like the memory1 and memory2 which I used to use quite a bit. These were supposedly based on some scientific research done on how most people remember colors, and how those colors should be adjusted to get to that state. Sounds like a bunch of hooey to me, but I liked the results regardless.

If I recall correctly, one adjusted the reds a bit and the other the blues, but not globally. You can adjust colors in LR, but only across the entire luminosity scale. I believe to get what SilkyPix does you need to adjust the colors differently across highlight, midtones and shadow curves which LR does not supply.



As far as licensing... I may need to check on the licensing from the US supplier again. If they would allow a upgrade (probably too late now) or multi-OS/Multi computer license that would be great. My laptop is a Windows machine.

I do not think you're missing anything.
Silkypix is extra special when it comes to what the engineers put into the handling of color development. Without color curves, I don't believe you can reproduce the effect in LR. (LR has tonal curves, but it cannot separate the color channels which is what likely need to attempt to duplicate what SilkyPix is doing.)

LightRoom has some nice features I wish SilkyPix would have added, but I don't think LR can do pure RAW processing quite as nicely. (LR3 is well worth the cost for the new noise reduction, if that is needed a lot and of course to catalog your photo library. Otherwise I prefer SilkyPix's rendering of RAW images).

I would have stayed with SilkyPix if they had any sort of cross-platform licensing. Had to move from Windows to Mac which meant I had to buy another full license. Sadly they lost me as a customer due to their inflexible pricing model... and not long before SP4 came out; a guaranteed upgrade sale. erg...

Another cause for quick battery drain (especially if you have the grip on your camera) is if you tend to sling the camera over your shoulder. Either the top or grip shutter release button can be hit by your hips (or a camera bag) and be focusing most of the day. Heavier lenses might tilt the camera into or out of such a position.

If you ever get accidental pictures of your feet this could be a definite cause.
If not... I'd probably go with LCD usage.