Photoshop 7 crashes on startup
Back at the end of 2003 I experienced a problem with Adobe Photoshop 7 crashing on a Windows XP machine. Since then, everything has been fine, but tonight the problem re-emerged so I dug out my old notes (which predate this blog) to try and find the answer.
Basically, when starting Photoshop, the splash screen displays as components are loaded and then nothing else appears (not even an error message).
Luckily, when this happened to me a few years back, I found a forum post with the answer to the problem - hold down the Ctrl, Alt and Shift keys whilst launching Photoshop (this will allow the settings file to be deleted and recreated). It’s worked twice for me now, hopefully blogging about it here will help someone else out too.
Posted: 23:38 on Monday 3 July 2006 under Photoshop.
Comments: 63
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Comments
Comment from Anonymous
Time: Thursday 13 July 2006, 21:11
Saved my client, thanks!
Comment from Jaime
Time: Monday 17 July 2006, 21:41
Wow, I had this problem today and reinstalled Photoshop with no change. It took one Google search to find your post and it worked. Thank you thank you.
Comment from Anonymous
Time: Monday 24 July 2006, 22:58
Ok, I’ll give it a shot.
Comment from Anonymous
Time: Monday 24 July 2006, 23:01
P is for VICTORY!
thnx tim graves
Comment from Anonymous
Time: Thursday 21 September 2006, 22:53
Teckspertise: The gift that keeps on giving. 
ThanX!
Comment from Bash
Time: Sunday 15 October 2006, 12:11
Awesome!! Hats off!!! mate, i was about to reinstall Photoshop 7, your blog solved my problem. Thanks once again….
Comment from Renee
Time: Tuesday 17 October 2006, 4:07
Fantastic!! I was going mad. Had reinstalled but still had the same problem.
This little trick got everything working again.
Comment from Anonymous
Time: Thursday 23 November 2006, 9:39
Thanks. I had wasted a lot of time on this and you solved the problem in seconds.
Martin
Comment from Anonymous
Time: Tuesday 27 February 2007, 21:16
I really, really hope this works - I’m on a deadline and going crazy with this stupid bug all of a sudden o_o;
Comment from Anonymous
Time: Friday 2 March 2007, 10:50
Tnx m8.. . I HAd reinstalled Photoshop like 20 times :S.. i had deleted everything but the problems are still there .. but when i seech this furom .. i saw your solution.. i tried it and there they go.. they are working again.. Thank you very much (Y)
Comment from saurabh
Time: Tuesday 20 March 2007, 18:41
Thanks man! i freelance, and as such have nobody to explain except the paying client when ps7 just refuses to work. You’re a life saver. This one particular client that im workin for right now is a tuff one. Thanks buddy. this bailed me out.
Comment from Rich
Time: Tuesday 10 April 2007, 19:30
Thank you so much! I was about to smash my computer with a hammer. You’re a god among men.
Comment from Karyn
Time: Friday 13 April 2007, 4:14
You are my hero. I love you! I thought I had lost photoshop forever. Thank you!
Comment from Mark Wilson
Time: Friday 13 April 2007, 11:13
I’m really glad that this post is helping people
It’s particularly good for my ego when people refer to me as “my hero” and “a god among men”
Comment from Lewis Shepherd
Time: Saturday 14 April 2007, 15:52
Thank you so much, This really saved me.
Comment from Anonymous
Time: Thursday 26 April 2007, 2:22
this worked. thank-you so much!
Comment from G00nage
Time: Thursday 3 May 2007, 5:40
Thank you Thank you
Comment from Anonymous
Time: Saturday 12 May 2007, 5:48
it worked!!! i couldnt figure oyut what was wrong… i thought it was my scanner haha …but not any more! thanks!
Comment from Monique
Time: Wednesday 16 May 2007, 3:45
Hey thanks soooo much. You saved the day, I had tryed uninstalling and reinstalling and everything else I could, to try to fix it. Now its working, and now I can tell my 19 year old son “I fixed it”" hehe
Thanks heaps
Comment from peterwalker
Time: Saturday 19 May 2007, 22:20
Brilliant tip! Thanks.
Comment from Mac Duncan
Time: Tuesday 22 May 2007, 18:57
Thanks so much, I was just about to attack the registry with an ax, but I read your post before I went crazy. Thanks!
Comment from Genea
Time: Sunday 17 June 2007, 8:32
THANKYOU.
I have no idea what caused the error, but you fixed it for me! I love PS7 and have no hopes for upgrading any time soon.
Comment from Amanda
Time: Thursday 5 July 2007, 0:17
You rock! You saved me! Thank you for taking the time to help all of us, you are a kind, good person. A special prayer for you and yours this evening!
Comment from Phill
Time: Thursday 26 July 2007, 22:28
Thankyou my friend, finding this page has made my night. Full respect for taking the time to send it round. I raise my hat to you man, if you are ever in town i owe you a pint.
Comment from David
Time: Wednesday 15 August 2007, 2:11
I’ll add my thanks to this growing list, I’m going to link over here on my little blog and click a couple of ads to show my gratitude!
Comment from Mark Wilson
Time: Wednesday 15 August 2007, 9:02
I’m glad this advice has turned out to be so useful!
Links and ad clicks are always good 
- thank you.
Comment from Ulysses
Time: Sunday 9 September 2007, 1:13
Hi Mark
I did use the Ctrl-Shift-Alt solution; and thanks it worked.
I have the same problem today, but C _ S _ A does not work: I get the Adobe Photoshop Properties page.
Any quick solution left?
Ulysses
Comment from jan
Time: Saturday 6 October 2007, 17:35
As I was another one who was actually stuck with this problem I also need to say THANK YOU!
Comment from Anonymous
Time: Monday 15 October 2007, 14:32
One simple google search and I found this. Worked perfectly. thanks for putting this up!
Comment from Josh
Time: Wednesday 28 November 2007, 15:13
You saved me, Mark - I work two hundred miles from my IT department, without admin rights on my laptop, and today my PS7 wouldn’t load. You rescued me from a long drive (or, just as bad, an intrusive Remote Desktop visit from IT!).
Thanks!
Comment from Em
Time: Tuesday 18 December 2007, 22:29
Thanks a mil, saved my day! Before i saw this post i thought everything was crashing so ran out to get backup disk… (dreaming a lot about it happening lately) now photoshop works and i have peace of mind!
Comment from John Hotchkiss
Time: Thursday 20 December 2007, 21:40
Saved my butt here - thanks!
Comment from giuseppe
Time: Wednesday 2 January 2008, 20:07
awsome, tried reinstalling and everything, worked a treat
Comment from Hank
Time: Tuesday 12 February 2008, 16:26
It doesn’t work for me. :’(
Comment from Anonymous
Time: Monday 31 March 2008, 17:47
Thank you a million times - I have spent so much on this that I don’t even want to know why this solution works - thanks again.
Comment from Anonymous
Time: Monday 31 March 2008, 17:48
Works for CS3 as well - I’ve just experienced it for the last 2 hours…Well done
Comment from katy boyd`
Time: Friday 4 April 2008, 12:29
I cannot thank you enough!!! I was going crazy trying to sort this out, and you did it! Also having a terrible time with CS on my mac… pretty much the same problem… any suggestions?
Thanks again!!!
Comment from Iris
Time: Sunday 6 April 2008, 22:46
Been having this problem for months, sometimes it would load fine, other times it would crash time and time again. This trick solved my problem! Thank you!
Comment from Cassi Anderson
Time: Monday 7 April 2008, 15:54
OMG!!! YOU SAVED MY ASS! I was getting SOOOO frustrated!!
Thanks for sharing!
Comment from dave
Time: Friday 18 April 2008, 14:37
thanks for tip will try it asap. from your responses, It looks like that will fix it. I only do photo touchup for newpaper pix so photoshop 7 has lots more than I need but still have the program thanks agin from illinois
Comment from Carolyn
Time: Friday 25 April 2008, 3:08
This was driving me mad, even after I uninstalled/reinstalled. It would just disappear while it was loading. I know it’s not my computer, as it has just been cleaned and defrag’d. I was ready to give up entirely and then I found this. It worked! HORRAY!!! THANK YOU!! 
Comment from Prominio
Time: Wednesday 7 May 2008, 2:35
Thanks a lot! After 3 days without photoshop, I was planning to format my computer, when I came across this simple trick! You are great, thanks again!
Comment from Jessie
Time: Thursday 8 May 2008, 8:05
Genius! You have saved me from one heck of a headache!
Comment from Justin Alexander
Time: Tuesday 20 May 2008, 21:32
Mark, you have just saved me from hours of frustration. Thank you so much!
Comment from Salo
Time: Sunday 6 July 2008, 11:19
Thx a lot!
Comment from PrehistoricFuzzball, ITN Admin
Time: Sunday 27 July 2008, 10:09
Being my PS is corperate inatall I didn’t have time to a bookshelf to read up on this kick-start but as I get time I will definately wiki-nate this for a PS ref as it saves time and install as well as haggling with SMS Perms. Being that all users aren’t Admins, (thank goodness),and can’t get around SMS, this provides a very nice end-user option to try and avoid a reinstall / reimage.
After re-installing over the top, uninstalling and re-installing still had same issue of PS7.0 crashing (as #44 stated) where as IR7.0 worked just fine. All I can say after reading this post is NICE SAVE, Excellent.
This worked for my instance, and strange that PS7.0 would not delete the setting upon uninstall and re-create on fresh install.
Nevertheless, this worked while other options didn’t.
Kudos, and cheers on the remedy.
Votes: Mark into Adobe’s PS CS FutureCrew Design team
Comment from Eve
Time: Saturday 9 August 2008, 7:31
Thanks a lot. I knew not to panic enough, and Google is my first resource for everything. Respect.
Comment from Dan The Wolf-Bear
Time: Tuesday 26 August 2008, 6:01
Thanks a lot, you are my hero. The problmem was solved, thanx thanx thanx thanx *bear hugs*
Comment from Paul R Gornitzka
Time: Wednesday 10 September 2008, 9:28
This is the first time its happened to me. Ive tried just about everything in the book. When I try this technique, it only crashes faster now. I wish I had the luck the rest of you did
Comment from somak
Time: Monday 13 October 2008, 11:46
thnks a lot. It was really a problem and i could not solve it. One google search and the answer was there!!
Comment from Heather Ann
Time: Friday 14 November 2008, 15:01
I love you, I love you. THANK YOU for blogging this! I had this problem once before and the only way I could fix it was to start a whole new profile but with iTunes, I didn’t want to lose all that. I had to figure it out! Thank you so much! I read this elsewhere but not for this problem so I wasn’t sure it would help this problem. Thank you!!!!
Comment from Neil
Time: Monday 17 November 2008, 2:14
It worked for me. Thanks a lot, you just saved me countless hours of anxiety!
Comment from Sharon
Time: Tuesday 27 January 2009, 14:25
THANK YOU!!!
I was really starting to freak out when uninstalling/reinstalling didn’t work and neither did a system restore, or last known good configuration.
I concur with Heather Ann up there…
I love you, I love you, THANK YOU for blogging this lol.
Comment from Vanessa
Time: Friday 30 January 2009, 19:02
I’m so glad I found this page! This fixed my problem THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!
Comment from drac
Time: Sunday 8 March 2009, 14:06
Thank you very much!!! i’ve lost 2 days before finding your blog, and it took just2 minutes to solve the problem. Thank you very very much!
Comment from jessie
Time: Friday 20 March 2009, 3:55
YAY! it’s fixed! i LOVE you!!
Comment from Lunaki
Time: Friday 24 April 2009, 19:39
my question is.. What even causes that bug? Because it happened to me, and I’d like to try avoiding it again.. xD
Comment from Ntsiki
Time: Wednesday 27 May 2009, 9:05
Thanks a lot bro..! It really works. After stressing and re-installing. Thanks man. Really.
Comment from Bjarne
Time: Thursday 4 June 2009, 5:04
You are a genius, thank you, it saved me hours!
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