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Red Point
Inspiring
September 25, 2023
Question

All settings lost after major Illustrator Update (dejavue like every year)

  • September 25, 2023
  • 1 reply
  • 653 views

Even though I always make sure to check "transfer settings" when updating, all my setting where lost after the recent Illustrator update.

It took me two hours to get all my setting back. It seems I have this issue every year and every year I post and every year I keep losing my setting after major updates. This is really annoying! 

I had to manually transfer or recreate the following settings:

1.) Add control bar (as it is missing)
2.) Add and recreate the task bar on the left / including the menus on the left
3.) Recreate my workspace
4.) Reconfigure my toolbar
5.) Reload or recreate all my "Export for Screens" custom export settings
6.) Gradients, Swatches and and and...

Anyway, I was able to recreate most settings, but my "Saved" templates are gone that I usually see when opening the "New Document" dialog. I wasnt able to find them. Could someone here kindly point me into the direction how I can copy paste them. Where would I find my old template file?

Thanks
PS: Since I am assuming many users will probably face similar issues and also need to invest many hours to recreate their initial settings, the Illustrator team should fix this. Assuming a user base of 10.000 users and everyone needs to reconfigure settings, this amounts to a total of 10.000 work hours wasted.

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    1 reply

    Monika Gause
    Community Expert
    Monika GauseCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    September 25, 2023

    Here's where to find every single setting: https://www.vektorgarten.de/illustrator-settings.html

    WHen done setting them up: CLose Illustrator and reopen, so the preferences get written.

    Edit > My settings > Export

     

    You might not be able to import each and every setting, because of too many changes in the app after an update. But you can try.

    R
    Red PointAuthor
    Inspiring
    October 1, 2023

    After each major update, I have to set up my preferences a new in all CC apps. Why is it so hard for Adobe just to keep my preference after an update? It works for smaller updates during the year, why not also on major updates?

    This is a real workflow killer. 

    Also, there are many cloud features I never use, like the annoying "save in cloud" splash screen that keeps popping up. But the one feature that many users would love to have is to be able to save settings in the cloud. We already had this feature; I think it was called "Sync Preferences". Why did Adobe delete this feature? It would save us many hours of work every year. In Indesign, it even reset my link panel so I now canot see if links are valid or not. Just one of 100 examples that I need to address every year.

    Super frustrating and annoying.

      Monika Gause
      Community Expert
      Monika GauseCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      October 1, 2023
      @Red Point  schrieb:

      After each major update, I have to set up my preferences a new in all CC apps. 

       

      There are a couple of reasons why that does not work.

       

      But: since you experience this after every update, why haven't you started to make backups of your settings so you can just replace the files? I, mean, it might not work, but you could at least try?

       

      Just go to Edit > My settings > Export.

       

      Or take them all from the respective locations: https://www.vektorgarten.de/illustrator-settings.html 

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