Some CS4 on XP-32bit Questions and Issues

RP
Posted By
Russell_Proulx
Oct 19, 2008
Views
237
Replies
7
Status
Closed
Now that I have CS4 running on XP I’m trying to do some real work with it. First thing I do is disable tabbed windows and other new features as they have yet to prove themselves useful in my workflow. Perhaps I’ll grow to appreciate them. But for now I’m just trying to get the app to work with the good ol’ floating windows.

1) Can I stop new images opening with a Window that’s glued to the top left corner of my screen? Past versions of PS just opened a floating Window. CS4 obliges me to ‘unstick’ the Window from the top left corner every time I open a new image. I’ve scoured the preferences but have yet to find any way to turn off this feature.

2) When grabbing the top bar of an open image window to move it on my screen I find it to be sluggish. With previous versions of PS one would grab the top of the image window and move it quickly on your screen to wherever you want. The response was pretty will instantaneous. With CS4 there seems to be a very slight lag whereby the move is occurring slightly behind the cursor moving it. It’s not a huge lag. Just enough to get the sense that there’s something amiss. I’ll try it in Vista64 to see if the same thing is occurring there.

Russell

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CH
CR_Henderson
Oct 19, 2008
RE: #2. I found that the lag decreased but didn’t disappear entirely (and the brush lag, too) when I changed my CPU processing preferences from ‘Programs’ to ‘Background services’. This is in Vista Ultimate 64. I don’t know if XP would experience the same increase in performance.
LH
Lawrence_Hudetz
Oct 19, 2008
That doesn’t make sense.

<http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308417>
JJ
John Joslin
Oct 19, 2008
No lag here. No settings changed.
CH
CR_Henderson
Oct 20, 2008
Lawrence Hudetz:That doesn’t make sense.

Sure it does if Photoshop.exe, the foreground program, relies on background services to handle ‘things’. Photoshope CS4 is an extremely complex program. Only Adobe engineers could tell us if it makes sense or not.

I know that on my system brush delay went from ‘very noticable’ with ‘Programs’ selected to ‘much less noticable’ with ‘Background services’ selected. The same is true for the ‘drag the window’. Prior to setting for Background it was slow enough that the momentary hesitation before the window released began to be irritating. After setting Background it is hardly noticable.
MP
Martijn_Pleines
Oct 20, 2008
Sorry, cannot help with #2; No lag on my sys.

#1: Edit/Preferences/Interface:

Uncheck "Open Documents as Tabs"

Martijn
MP
Martijn_Pleines
Oct 20, 2008
Sorry, cannot help with #2; No lag on my sys. (Which is XP Pro 32 SP3, PS CS4).

#1: Edit/Preferences/Interface:

Uncheck "Open Documents as Tabs"

Martijn
NH
Nati_Harnik
Oct 20, 2008
RE floating windows, (have to assume this is a bug)

I too find it unexpected behavior that despite unchecking in CS4 Preferences / Interface the “Enable floating document window docking” and “Open documents as tabs” , a new image ALWAYS opens docked to the top left of the framed workspace.
Things get even more puzzling if one has PS CS4 set as a window on part of the monitor area (Restored Down)- The new image will always be opened within that restored down window, and in my case it is a microscopic dot on the screen.
You can drag the new image away from the framed workspace to another area of the monitor, and enlarge it with a mouse wheel or the zoom tool, but should you use the keyboard shortcuts of CTRL + +, or CTRL + -, or CTRL + 0, the image window immediately snaps back into the framed document window, and that is not good.

Another unexpected behavior in CS4 is the doing away with the right-click context menu on the top bar of an open image. In previous PS versions that brought up a very useful menu that included “Image Size”; “Canvas”; etc. That is gone.

What I really love in CS4 is the new Adjustments Panel, and once Configurator is made available, I will be able to configure the interface to my liking.

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