Photoshop 7 fails to initialize (as do all Adobe products on my machine)

KP
Posted By
Kimberly_Perkins
Jan 19, 2004
Views
323
Replies
10
Status
Closed
All my Adobe products have been working fine until today. Haven’t installed anything new. Haven’t run any mischevious .exe or .vbs files…

I’m receiving this error: "Could not initialize Photoshop because the preferences file was invalid (it has been deleted)."

Now, I read that PS is supposed to recreate the preferences file if it’s deleted. Hmmm…

Anyway, I reinstalled PS7. Same problem.

Also, strangely, Illustrator 9.02, PageMaker 7.01, and Acrobat Reader 6.0 hang when loading. Reinstalled all these as well. Problem persists.

Everything else works on this computer. Just Adobe products that are failing. What can I do short of formatting my hard drive and reinstalling everything? Is there an Adobe-only virus that magically installs itself from nowhere?

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Y
YrbkMgr
Jan 20, 2004
Speaking strictly about Photoshop, reset preferences per the procedure in the FAQ (regardless of what the message says) and see if that doesn’t help.

Peace,
Tony
RG
Ryan_Greene
Jan 20, 2004
Photoshop is out of action for me too, as well as at least 3 of my co-workers. It won’t even start, and is just hanging on the load screen. This has begun happening for everyone within the last week. I work at Microsoft, and we are on a large, well protected network that is virus-free. My machine did do an auto-update with Photoshop last night, and it is not working today. Might this be the culprit?

Please share any fixes for this problem.
MM
Mick_Murphy
Jan 20, 2004
Ryan

This is a long shot and may be totally irrelevant but try going into Internet Explorer – Options – Advanced -Security and unchecking Check for Publisher’s Revocation Certificate. There were some weird problems with a Norton update about 10 days ago which caused strange behaviour with Word on my machine (hanging for ages before it would eventually start) but I did hear of one instance where PS was affected. A bit different to what you seem to be saying but given the similar timespan, it might be worth a shot.
Y
YrbkMgr
Jan 20, 2004
In addition to Mick’s advice, try resetting the preferences per the procedure in the FAQ.
L
LenHewitt
Jan 20, 2004
Kimberley,

Now, I read that PS is supposed to recreate the preferences file if it’s
deleted. Hmmm…<<

Well, it will start with default settings – but you still need to go and re-build YOUR preferences from Edit>Preferences…

However, if you are getting that message repeatedly then your preference file is not getting saved properly, and along with your other problems, it points to something rather deeper than a Photoshop problem….
KP
Kimberly_Perkins
Jan 20, 2004
"you still need to go and re-build YOUR preferences from Edit>Preferences"

I failed to mention that Photoshop exits after that error. I can’t get to Edit>Preferences, or anything for that matter.
DM
dave_milbut
Jan 20, 2004
kim (and others), see this faq topic on how to reset your prefrences:

Mathias Vejerslev "How to delete/reset Photoshop preferences" 2/11/03 12:04pm </cgi-bin/webx?50>
KP
Kimberly_Perkins
Jan 20, 2004
Many thanks, but I solved the problem in a very strange way. I simply logged onto another account in windows xp, reinstalled photoshop there, and now it works (though it still fails under my old account). Odd.
DM
dave_milbut
Jan 20, 2004
though it still fails under my old account). Odd.

That’s because each account will have it’s own set of prefrences. Delete the prefs per the faq and both accounts will work! 🙂
CB
Charles_Batho
Jan 20, 2004

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