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_Eli_Roth_
Participant
October 23, 2007
Answered

ESC key not working outside PS in Vista...

  • October 23, 2007
  • 44 replies
  • 68444 views
This haunts our users since we migrated to Vista. When Photoshop CS2/CS3 is running under Vista the ESCAPE key does not work correctly with other programs. When PS is running, the escape key works only when pressing SHIFT+ESC together. This is extremely annoying when multiple programs are used, what could be the root of the problem?

Thanks!
    This topic has been closed for replies.
    Correct answer Chris Cox
    elipsoid - figure out which of your third party plugins is messing up the escape key...

    44 replies

    Show previous replies
    T
    Tomas_Eklund
    Participating Frequently
    October 3, 2009

    I'm using 32-bit version of Vista Professional and Photoshop CS2 on a Fujitsu laptop equipped with a Mobile Intel 945 Express graphics chip.

    This ESC-problem has puzzled and bugged me for quite some time now, but not until today I got so frustrated about it to actually google it. Luckily I found this thread. I found that shutting down Photoshop gave me the ESC-key back, but that is a poor solution since I use Photoshop quite a bit when working and it's a pain to launch only when needed (because that takes forever). I have no third party plugins installed.

    If I disable the hotkeys in the graphics driver (enabled by default, none of which used the ESC-key) the problem goes away.Thanks Eli_Roth for the suggestion.

    Because the problem occurs with graphics drivers of almost any brand and only when Photoshop is running, I can't say I believe Adobe is totally innocent. And I must say I agree with the other frustrated users here who think Adobe are arrogant and that their support and care for their customers need improvement. Isn't it funny how the users give better support than those who actually wrote the application?

    T
    Tomas_Eklund
    Participating Frequently
    October 12, 2009

    I just noticed something that might be of interest. I was loading this huge file into Photoshop CS2 that seemed to take forever. You know, there is a progress indicator and Cancel-button which is coupled with the Escape key. So instead of staring at that boring screen for several minutes I brought up ACDSee (an image viewer/browser application) browsing through some images. When ACDSee is in full screen viewing mode Escape takes you out of it. But this time it didn't. I pressed Escape several times but it was locked in that state. I had to use Ctrl-F4 to close it. When I went back to Photoshop I saw that the image wasn't opened. Pressing Escape in a different application had apparently stopped the loading of the large image in Photoshop.

    This suggests that Photoshop CS does indeed hijack the Escape key in some non-standard way.

    gener7
    Community Expert
    gener7Community Expert
    Community Expert
    October 13, 2009

    I use ACDSee as well. Disabling hotkeys on my Intel 965 settings has done the job since I last posted in this thread two years ago. I can go fullscreen with ACDSee and use the ESC key to get out of it when Photoshop CS4 is running. I think I had further traced it either to a screen rotation feature in my driver,or the hotkeys enabled for that feature.

    This does fix the problem,but no idea why.

    D
    dfhentax
    Participant
    August 13, 2009

    Wow, two years since I posted this bug and since then it still sits inside the very heart of Photoshop. Damn, Adobe what about actually doing something about this problem?

    I can confirm that:

    IT IS NOT RELATED TO ATI CATALYST DRIVER

    IT IS SOLELY BASED ON WHETHER ANYTHING EXISTS INSIDE THE PLUG-INS FOLDER

    So, if the Plug-ins folder has any of these preinstalled folders inside them, the ESC problem appears.

    3D Engines

    ADM

    Automate

    Digimarc

    Effects

    Extensions

    File Formats

    Filters

    Image Stacks

    Import-Export

    Measurements

    Panels

    Chris Cox: It is DEFINELTY A PROBLEM, SO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT! And please create the bug report for us, based on this thread. You know, we are the - angry - customers and you are the one, who gives the service. So, be quick about it. Thanks!

    A
    Anonymous
    August 13, 2009

    dfhentax wrote:

    You know, we are the - angry - customers and you are the one, who gives the service. So, be quick about it. Thanks!

    Charming!  

    gener7
    Community Expert
    gener7Community Expert
    Community Expert
    January 25, 2009
    Extra note: In the Intel driver settings (965/x3100),unchecking "rotate display" seems to allow the hotkeys to be turned back on without bringing up the CS4 ESC key issue.
    gener7
    Community Expert
    gener7Community Expert
    Community Expert
    January 25, 2009
    I decided to pound on this problem and the ATI fix gave me a hint. I right-clicked on the Intel (965)GMA icon in my system tray and clicked on "Disable Hotkeys" which had been enabled by default since I had this laptop.

    Now the ESC key works normally inside and outside Photoshop.

    So to Adobe's credit,it was a graphics driver setting that cross threaded with CS4 (and Vista) and not a bug with Photoshop CS4.
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    _elipsoid_
    Participating Frequently
    January 2, 2009
    Too bad I have a NVIDIA based system, no ATI here.
    _
    _milosh6_
    Participant
    December 28, 2008
    I just discovered that last ATI Catalyst v. 08.12 does not cause the problem with ESC anymore. Now I can run Photoshop while having Catalyst center running as a background process and everything works well.
    _
    _Pavel_Pola_
    Participant
    December 27, 2008
    I had some troubles with ATI drivers so I needed to uninstall all ATI stuff - and voilá, ESC key is now working fine outside PS. So I believe there is definitely problem with Photoshop running on machine with ATI Catalyst Center.
    _
    _elipsoid_
    Participating Frequently
    December 4, 2008
    Another observation: when I am editing a text field in PS, the ESC key works in other programs. As soon as I finish editing the text, it stops working again.
    frax_-L75d7K
    frax_-L75d7K
    Known Participant
    December 1, 2008
    Friends,
    Please report the problem here: http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/mmform/index.cfm?name=wishform

    Be extensive in describing the problem, and please refer back to this thread.
    _
    _Jacek_Verp_
    Participant
    December 1, 2008
    I do have the same issue with ESC key not working, but the suggestions above either hardly work (the small program seems to get stuck after few hours) or do not work at all (removing plugins).

    I've spent quite a bit trying to figure out the solution, but there just weren't anything working, so I did some reseearch on my own - I installed a fresh copy of Vista x64 Ultimate SP1 (Polish) on my PC, then I installed Photshop's trial... and guess what - ESC key worked fine on this setup.

    But since it was a mint installation I wanted to try what would happen if I installed drivers. I tried the display driver first - newest version availabe of ATI catalyst and ESC key stopped working outside PS. I know that Catalyst drivers tend to be crappy and have their stupid hotkeys enabled, but that wasn't the case here as the hotkeys were off.

    I googled that some other guy found the same issue and ATI's support said something about permissions and that it isn't their fault or something.

    Majority of other people I googled and contacted with had ATI 4850-4870 cards and a few were using laptop x3100 (intel) or 8400m (nvidia) chips. Most were on 64bit Vista's, but the 8400m guy used 32bit.

    I have no clue what is wrong :(
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