AI CS2 dialogue windows messed up

[VoltisArt]

That's the New Document window shown above, for those of you who don't want to zoom in.  Any thoughts?  My preferences window is even thinner, (both hanging off the screen) neither of them with any visible text, but keyboard controls (enter/escape) still seem to work within them.  There's no border to resize any of these.

I've tried resetting preferences and the workspace by renaming each of the prefs files in my settings folder, but none fixed this.  I did notice text missing on the Welcome Screen, after resetting prefs.  (That window has text, but it's probably only images.)  The Welcome Screen was actually the right size.

I also have Photoshop CS2, which is working fine, so it doesn't seem like it's a likely issue with the OS.  (Win10)  Yes, I'm aware they're not officially supported anymore or even supposed to work in a new OS.  They do...and (until today) better than they did in Win7.

[VoltisArt]

Grrr.  I've no idea why, but it's just decided to behave after I tried the Open File window.  Restarted the program a couple times since...and everything's working fine now.

Not sure if anybody else has even read this yet with that moderator approval notice...but while the problem's solved, I'm still really curious about why this might happen and if there's anything that could have been done aside from reinstalling...or trying to open a file!?

[Monika Gause]

That is Windows 8 or even 10?

CS2 was never made for it. I'm surprised you can even launch it.

[VoltisArt]

As stated above:  "I also have Photoshop CS2, which is working fine, so it doesn't seem like it's a likely issue with the OS.  (Win10)  Yes, I'm aware they're not officially supported anymore or even supposed to work in a new OS.  They do...and (until today) better than they did in Win7."

[Monika Gause]

Photoshop and Illustrator are two completely different products with different codebase.

[Guest]

I had this too, and it's completely disabling since it affects not only the New... dialog, but also Print, Scale, and other subsidiary dialogs.

I also tried resetting preferences, or quitting and restarting multiple times, to no avail.

What finally did it for me: running Photoshop CS2 first (possibly keeping it running), *then* running Illustrator CS2.  All the dialogs came back.  I have no idea why this fixes the issue, but I hope this bit of info helps somebody.

[Bill Silbert]

Updates that happened to Windows 10 a few months ago have caused any pre-CC versions of Illustrator to behave the way that the original questioner showed in the initial screen shot. There were many people who submitted this same question and the answer then as now is that the Windows 10 update has essentially brought about end of life for all of these older versions of Illustrator. The only valid long-term solutions are to either roll back your OS or subscribe to Creative Cloud and install the latest versions. CS2 came out around 2004. In computer years that's like a millennium.

[Guest]

I have this same problem. By the way, Illustrator CS2 was working fine for me on windows 10. For quite some time I used it on windows 10, but I built a new computer and now it has the same behavior as you are describing.

For some reason the menu dialogue boxes are opening as "new window" and have screwed up formatting. Photoshop seems to be working normally.

Any ideas? I also know it isn't officially supported but I feel like it is a setting since it was working on my old computer. Could it be a display setting?