Help! Unable to launch Photoshop; always get an error message

Hi,

First, let me says thank you for taking the time to read about my problem and hopefully offering helpful feedback. I really appreciate it as I am totally stumped as to how to proceed with fixing the problem that plagues me. I think it might be a driver or firmware issue, but I am not sure. If after reading my problem someone thinks that there is a better forum room to showcase my problem, please let me know.

The PROBLEM: Photoshop CS4 will NOT launch. After working for a week, the program started showing an an error message whenever I launched it. The error message is as follows: Adobe Photoshop CS4 has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience. I have the Adobe Master Collection CS4 installed on my system and all the other Adobe programs work fine; it is only the Photoshop program that is NOT working.

My first action was to see if I received the same error message if I was in SAFE MODE. To my relief, in Safe Mode I found that Photoshop launched WITHOUT a problem, generating NO error message. After rebooting the system I proceeded to MSCONFIG and turned off ALL the start-up items, services, both Microsoft and non-Microsoft, and the System INI and WINIIN files. I thought this would create a very similar environment to Safe Mode; however, there is obviously a difference because Photoshop still received the same error message even after turning everything off under MSCONFIG. I am a little confused because I thought that turning off all the services and start-up items was basically the same as Safe Mode.

When MSCONFIG did not work, I resorted to another option, and that was to roll-back my system using Roxio's BackOnTrack. . Fortunately, I had a number of restore points and I started rolling back the system. I rolled back as far as a week before, to the time when I had just installed Photoshop and everything was working fine. However, that still DID NOT fix the problem with Photoshop. I guess rolling back does not restore the system to the exact state it was in.

Finally, I resorted to uninstalling the Adobe Master Suite with Photoshop and then REINSTALLED the Adobe Suite on my system. I thought this would definitely fix the problem, but, alas, it also DID NOT fix the problem. As soon as I tried to launch Photoshop again I received the same damn error message.

I am so frustrated and have NO idea how to proceed. I am hopefully optimistic that since Photoshop works in Safe Mode that there MUST be a way to determine and fix the issue that is causing Photoshop to always receive an error message upon launching.

I would greatly appreciate any feedback that would lead me in the right direction to fixing this problem, as Photoshop is an important program in my arsenal. Thanks, again!!


Best,
Skyler