Oh thank the Computer Gods (I think)! Here I was thinking that my Adobe Illustrator CS3 was just totally busted. I've spent the last few months on and off trying to figure out just what the problem was. It seemed to freeze whenever I tried to open or save a file. Finally I ended up creating a new user account on my computer which seemed to work (but that was a short term solution as I wanted my normal desktop with my Google sidebar back!).

During my holiday break I completely cleaned the computer, backed up data, uninstalled my entire Master Collection and then reinstalled it all only to find that.... it still didn't work! DRATTTT!!!

Today I ended up devoting my whole day to troubleshooting and spent the last 3-4 hours following the step by step instructions on "freeze" errors in Illustrator. Then suddenly it occurred to me... what if I'm not describing this problem accurately?

So I took a step back and recreated the problem. Open Illustrator. File. Open. Window appears for a second and then disappears leaving the program looking like it is frozen. However when I did a Ctrl-Alt-Del to get to the Task Manager... the program said it was "Running" and not "Not Responding." So wait... was it actually still working? Could it be that my window had just disappeared but that it still existed and Illustrator was forever waiting for me to make a decision about just what I wanted to open? I decided to google that phrase ("Illustrator open window appears and then disappears") and THAT led me to the CORRECT Knowledge Base article over at Adobe. Apparently this is a problem stemming from using my OS Dialog (instead of the Adobe Dialog) and having two monitors. PROBLEM SEEMS TO BE MOTHER-EFFIN' SOLVED!!! (I think.)

So if you're googling the same thing and you happen upon this post - Go Here: http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=kb403268

Thank the Baby Christmas Jesus .. I can now get back into my love affair with Illustrator!

Labels: adobe, illustrator