Phtotshop.exe – Entry Point Not Found

It has to be due to a plugin that you installed, or a driver that is incorrectly installed (that includes TWAIN and WIA drivers).

OK – this system has a test WINXP Pro X64 build and needs to be rebuilt into a final configuration. I will restore an earlier partition dump and test CS2 before-and-after adding the Brother X64 TWIAN driver and my Photoshop plugins.

But it seems that there is a basic problem with CS2 if attempting to delete a file causes an error. What does deleting a file have to do with scanner TWAIN drivers or Photoshop plugins?

Deleting a file has nothing to do with it.

But it sounds like you have something added to your OS that modifies the open/save dialogs and needs a DLL that is not available.

R BD — According to this page < http://www.spywaredata.com/spyware/malware/middleearth.dll.p hp>, middlearth.dll is a file associated with scanners. If you are getting an error dialog citing this file, it is almost certain that you have a scanner whose TWAIN or WIA driver is somehow involving itself. Try uninstalling your scanner; see if the problem goes away; and if so try reinstalling the scanner to see if the problem comes back.

Thanks for the suggestions.

I have tested the file deletion from other programs, including:

MS Word (Office 2003).
Irfanview.
Adobe Reader 7.
Emedit.
Windows Explorer.
Firefox.
Omnipage Pro 15.

They have no problems doing the same delete in the open/close dialogs.

Only Photoshop CS2 has problems.

I will restore a clean WINXP backup later in the week, install CS2, and incrementally install other items to see if I can discover what combination of software causes the problem. Will post results when finished.

R BD

Yes, but the error has nothing to do with Photoshop and everything to do with your scanner software, as already discussed.

Well – none of this will work. It is now past midnight and as you will be able to tell from this post I am very frustrated.

I restored an early C: partition so that I could go back to a state where the TWAIN and Photoshop plugins were not installed so that I could install CS2 and test what is causing the CS2 file delete error. But after installing CS2 it will not run.

Even though I never activated CS2, and even though this install still says there is 23 days left in the trial – if I install CS2 in a restored backup copy of XP – CS2 will not run as trial software. Obviously CS2 has written information outside of the C: partition; obviously there is a bug in the CS2 activation process – it sees that I am attempting to reinstall the program on the same physical disk drive, but does not recognize that I was previously using a trial version and there are 23 days left in the trial period.

What can I do to reinstall CS2 as trial software so that I don’t have to go through a never-ending cycle of reactivations when I restore C: backups as I try to test CS2 and my installation of XP X64?

You would have saved yourself a lot of grief by following the suggestion to uninstall your scanner software to narrow down the problem. The problem you now face is that you won’t be able to use the CS2 trial version again, ever, unless you reformat your hard disk. The copy protection/activation system used for CS2 doesn’t allow you to continue using the trial version after a system restore or clock reset (for fairly obvious reasons). If you had mentioned that you were using the trial version you would probably have been warned about this.

You aren’t encountering a bug in the CS2 activation process, since you are using the trial version, which uses a fixed 30-day limit that gets cut off if you do things that might be capable of circumventing that limit. Both the trial version and the full version store security information on special sectors of the disk (I think in the master boot record, but not sure) to avert misuse.

Look at the good side: At least you don’t have to worry about "a never-ending cycle of reactivations," since you won’t be able to reactivate the trial even once without reformatting the entire drive (not just the partition).

The reason I didn’t uninstall the TWAIN driver is because it has been my past experience that uninstalling software does not assure that the system is in a state that will provide a dependable repeatable test environment. The ONLY certain way to do that is to fall back to a known good earlier version of the system before a suspect product was first installed and resume testing from that point on.

OK – against my better judgement I restored the C: partition that had the working trial version of CS2 and the CS2 trial version still worked.

I then uninstalled the Brother AIO X64 suite that installed the Brother TWAIN scanner driver and checked to be sure that there were no TWAIN drivers in the system – none were found. Photoshop CS2 still gets errors deleting files. Problem not solved. I tested the scanner and printer to be sure they were still working – they are.

Since MiddelEarth.dll is supplied by ScanSoft with their OmniPage Pro 14 & 15 programs – both of which are installed on this PC – both of which work without problems. I then uninstalled OmniPage Pro 14 SP2. Photoshop CS2 will now delete files from the open dialog screen without errors.

I tested OmniPage Pro 15 (trial version) – it still works. I then uninstalled OmniPage Pro 15 (trial version) and reinstalled OmniPage Pro 14 SP2. CS2 still deletes files from the open dialog screen without errors. So the problem is not caused by OmniPage Pro 14 itself.

I then reinstalled OmniPage Pro 15 (trial). (BTW – ScanSoft seems to learned obnoxious habits from Adobe – the trial copy of OmniPage Pro 15 will now not run after being reinstalled without product activation – even though the trial period was not expired.) Photoshop CS2 now gets errors deleting files. So – does the CS2 error occur when both OmniPage Pro 14 & 15 are installed – or some other combination of conditions? Need more testing by uninstalling OmniPage Pro 14 and 15 – and then reinstalling 15 to be sure the problem stays gone.

I went back and reinstalled the C: partition that had the working trial versions of CS2 and OmniPage 15 (which worked above) – but the CS2 trial version now does not work. So – once again – my test environment is dead courtesy of Adobe.

So what do I do now? If I activate CS2 and OmniPage and continue testing – every time I need to restore a C: backup to test a new combination of applications I will have a dead copy of CS2 (and possibly OmniPage?) and have to activate/reactivate everything again?

How can anyone test, debug, and qualify a system configuration if product activation keeps locking the applications during testing? Is anyone from Adobe management listening to this forum? Are you so sure of your customer base that you believe this type of draconian punitive activation scheme is going to keep long-time customers onboard?

R BD