InDesign CS4 launches with missing workspaces, keyboard shortcut sets, etc

Report · Dec 09, 2008

Due to the mixture of multiple issues in this thread:
http://www.adobeforums.com/webx/.59b6c639/
I'm starting this as a new topic to focus on the cases where InDesign CS4 users are able to launch and use the product, but are missing resources such as the following types of presets: Workspaces, Keyboard Shortcut Sets, and Swatch Libraries.

All reports of this issue appear to be related to user permissions. For these resources to to be accessed you must be running InDesign CS4 with an account that has read/write access to the following folder, including it's subfolders and all of their content:
C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe InDesign CS4\Presets

If you have a setup where you are running into problems getting resources from this folder to appear in InDesign CS4, and you believe your user account has read/write permissions to all of it's contents, please let me know as I'd like to work with you to find a solution.

Report · May 12, 2009

You should download process monitor the old sysinternals now owned by Microsoft. You'll need to be logged on as the User and run process monitor as an administrator through the runas command. You need to look for access denied errors that show up which should point to the location of the problem.

On another note check the registry key above and see if a language sub-key has been created.

Cheers

Jason

Report · May 13, 2009

Jason_M_B,

Thanks for the quick reply. I downloaded Sysinternals' Process Monitor, logged onto my co-worker Jennifer's computer using her account, and ran Process Monitor as an administrator via the Runas command. I then fired up Adobe InDesign and tried all the commands that haven't been working with her account; exited InDesign; and saved the Process Monitor's log file (which was quite large... a bit over 1GB in size after running for just 5-7 min or so). I filtered out every other process except for the InDesign one, saved this as a CSV file, opened it in Excel, and then isolated everything with "Access Denied"; there are probably over 130 entries with "Access Denied", many located primarily in either C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\xxx or under various items in the Registry HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\xxx (though there are various "Access Denied" messages in other areas too).

The next question is: how do I proceed from here? Should I manually try to add Permissions (granting "Full Control") to Jennifer's account in all of those areas where access is currently being denied?

Thanks in advance for any further advice/insight you can provide into this matter. I really appreciate it!

Sincerely,

L.F. Lee

Report · May 13, 2009

Did you look in this key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Adobe\InDesign\6.0 ?

to see if there was an en_ key created, if the language key doesn't exist it will cause problems.

Cheers

Jason

Report · May 13, 2009

Jason_M_B,

Thanks again for the quick reply!

The only items in the registry under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Adobe\InDesign\6.0 are:

(Default) REG_SZ (value not set)

Feature Set Locale Setting      REG_DWORD       0x00000100 (256)
EPIC_SERIAL                        REG_SZ
EPIC_NAME                          REG_SZ                user
User Interface Locale Setting   REG_DWORD       0x00000002 (2)
Installer Locale Setting            REG_SZ                en_GB

(Hope I didn't mis-count the number of zeroes in some of those values...)

Do I need to add another key or something?

L.F. Lee

Report · May 13, 2009

The important key is this one:

Installer Locale Setting REG_SZ en_GB

This appears to be correct, can you tell me, is the user in question in the power users group or users?

Do you put Domain Users in the Power Users group on the workstations?

Cheers

Jason

Report · May 13, 2009

Jason_M_B,

Jennifer is a member of the built-in Domain Users group, which is what all staff members in our office are a member of. None of the staff
are administrators on their workstations. I never assigned the Power Users group to anything; most everything on the Windows 2008 Server is on its default settings..

Thanks again for your assistance. I'm actually off work already (got off at 8 p.m., 15 min ago) and wouldn't mind staying and doing overtime to get this resolved, but unfortunately, I have an appointment to meet someone and cannot stay. I hope we can continue this dialog tomorrow when I get back into the office (11 a.m. - 8 p.m.). Apologies for having to run off...! :-0

Thank you again,

L.F. Lee

Report · May 13, 2009

No problems, I woul add her to the power users just too see what happens.

Cheers

Jason

Report · May 13, 2009

Jason,

Thanks for the update.

Forgive my ignorance, I'm still relatively new and trying to get used to Windows Server 2008 and am not quite sure where the "Power Users" group is located. I'm in Active Directory and there are two default folders of groups, "Built In" and "Users"; these are the group types listed for each:

BUILT IN
Account Operators
Administrators
Backup Operators
Certificate Service DCOM Access
Cryptographic Operators
Distributed COM Users
Event Log Readers
Guests
IIS_IUSRS
Incoming Forest Trust Builders
Network Configuration Operators
Performance Log Users
Performance Monitor Users
Pre-Windows 2000 Compatible Access
Print Operators
Remote Desktop Users
Replicator
Server Operators
Terminal Server License Servers
Users
Windows Authorization Access Group

USERS
Administrator
Allowed RODC Password Replication Group
Cert Publishers
Denied RODC Password Replication Group
DnsAdmins
DnsUpdateProxy
Domain Admins
Domain Computers
Domain Controllers
Domain Guests
Domain Users
Enterprise Admins
Enterprise Read-only Domain Controllers
Group Policy Creater Owners
Guest
RAS & IAS Servers
Read-only Domain Controllers
Schema Admins
Terminal Server Computers
TS Web Access Computers

I made all staff members of both Built In > Users and Users > Domain Users. I've skimmed through the descriptions, but didn't see anything saying "Power Users"...

Thanks again,

L.F. Lee

Report · May 25, 2009

The complete fix from start to finish for my problem (InDesign CS4 launching without toolbars or keyboard shortcuts when logged on without Administrator priviliges) is below. It's actually quite simple once you know how... The problem is just getting all of the information in the same place. Hopefully it will help others having the same problem.

1. Install CS4 from the 2 installation CDs. Allow a couple of hours from start to finish.

2. Log on with an Administrator account:

a. Navigate to “C:\Program Files\Adobe\”.

b. Right-click on the folder named “Adobe InDesign CS4”

c. Click Properties

d. Click on the Security tab

e. Change permissions for Users to Full Control

f. Click on the Advanced button and ensure that there is a check in both of the boxes (inherit and replace permissions).

g. Click Apply to reflow the permissions

h. Click OK twice.

3. Navigate to the following locations and rename each of the EN_UK folders to EN_US:

a. C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe InDesign CS4\Presets\InDesign Workspaces\

b. C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe InDesign CS4\Presets\Page Sizes\

c. C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe InDesign CS4\Presets\Start Page\

d. C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe InDesign CS4\Presets\InDesign Shortcut Sets\

4. With a user account, launch Adobe InDesign CS4 and immediately hold down Shift, Control and Alt together. Click Yes to delete the InDesign Preference files.

Report · May 11, 2009

After messing around with InDesign for a day I have found that the reason the shortcut and return keys don't work is due to a permission issue on a registry key. For some reason normal Users work fine but Power Users fail.

The key is:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Adobe\InDesign\6.0

You need to change the Everyone permission from READ to Full Control

I have had three machines with this issue and has corrected all of them.

Cheers

Jason

Report · Jun 20, 2009

i copied from cs3 shortcut set folder then paste into cs4, works gr8.

From Program files- Adobe - indesign cs3 - Presets - InDesign Shortcut Sets

Paste To Below folder

Windows XP -: Documents and Settings\[username]\Application Data\Adobe\InDesign\[version]\[language]InDesign Shortcut Sets
Windows Vista -: Users\[username]\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\InDesign\[Version]\[Language]\InDesign Shortcut Sets

Report · Jul 09, 2009

Had a similar problem after updating flash player in that all of my InDesign presets, shortcuts etc disappeared - even an uninstall and then a re-install didn't fix the problem.

It was fixed by giving me full administrator rights to the whole of the programmes folder!!

It appears that Indesign and perhaps Adobe has a number of files that it references throughout the machine and not neatly contained by its own folder.

I hope this helps others

Report · Jul 09, 2009

@Harvey,

Yes, as mentioned above, we store some user generated data in the user's folder. This is designed to help prevent deletion of the user data when uninstalling the application.

Here's an example:

Windows XP -

Documents and Settings\[username]\Application Data\Adobe\InDesign\[version]\[language]InDesign Shortcut Sets

Windows Vista -: Users\[username]\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\InDesign\[Version]\[Language]\InDesign Shortcut Sets

Report · Aug 27, 2009

Hi all,

I'm working with InDesign on a Mac and have just encountered the same problem.

Changing the name of the US_en file has helped to restore my tools and panels etc. However my keyboard shortcuts, arrow keys etc. still aren't working. Does anyone have a fix for this?

Thanks heaps!

Report · Aug 27, 2009

Did you actually go to Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts... and choose your set, or are you saying the defaults don't work?

Report · Aug 27, 2009

Thanks for the response.

The defaults don't work and I don't seem to be able to add any new ones. The arrow keys don't work on my keyboard either... I'm getting a little frustrated...

Report · Aug 28, 2009

I'm afraid I don't have much else for you as I'm not a Mac troubleshooter...

Does it work if you create a new clean user account?

Report · Oct 12, 2009

We experience the same problems.

Indesign starts with missing workspaces when a user doesn't have administrative rights.

If I use the suggestions mentioned on the Adobe kb (giving users full rights on some Indesign folders), the workspaces show up but Indesign crashes when you try to save a document.

If I adjust the compatibility mode to "Windows NT", Indesign also starts up with all workspaces but again crashes on saving a document.

The only thing that helps are renaming the presets, papersize and "Shortcut sets" to en_US in the Indesign folder. Problem with this method is that all our users have american settings (letter in stead of A4) and picas in stead of mm as a default. We need the UK settings as a default.

Does anyone have another suggestions we could try?

Report · Oct 21, 2009

Hi All,

Can anyone help with this problem? See - the tools are not showing. The type is not showing. Thank you very much Even brand new documents with black type selected will not show up. Thanks for your help!

Report · Oct 21, 2009

Also, I am running Windows XP. Thanks!

Report · Oct 22, 2009

Speaking from my own experience (but the problem I had was a little different from yours and I was working on a mac) the only thing that hepled was reinstalling InDesign. I hope someone else with more knowledge than me can give you something a little more helpful!

Report · Oct 22, 2009

Make sure you're patched to 6.0.4.

Bob

Report · Oct 22, 2009

You might also want to look at this tech note: http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/408/kb408055.html

Report · Oct 22, 2009

Your screen shot looks exactly like the problem users experience when running InDesign CS4 6.0.0 on a PC with a processor that doesn't have the SSE2 instruction set built into it. See this tech doc for details, and update InDesign to the latest version, 6.0.4, for a fix to this, and many more known issues:

http://go.adobe.com/kb/ts_kb407801_en-us

Matthew

Report · Jan 26, 2010

Hi all,

I haven't read this whole thread, but have resolved the problem of missing keyboard shortcuts today. For me, what worked was uninstalling InDesign, using CCleanup to cleanup the left over/corrupt registry files, then reinstalling. I had tried pretty much everything in the help section on this topic, nothing worked (spent at least 5 hours on it!!!!). All good now though.

BTW, I'm in Australia, not the US, not sure if this makes any difference or not.