ESC key not working outside PS in Vista...

[_Eli_Roth_]

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!

[_elipsoid_]

Too bad I have a NVIDIA based system, no ATI here.

[gener7]

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.

[gener7]

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.

[dfhentax]

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!

[Guest]

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!  

[Guest]

You are two months and 10 days short of two years since you first posted.

[jayp2007]

I'm having the same problem and what I can't understand is the callous attitude of the last two responses on the forum and Adobe's additude of indifference toward the issue.

I tried calling support at one point and was not so politely told that because I was running 64-bit Windows, my issue wasn't supported in CS3 and that I should upgrade to CS4. It takes an impressive level of chutzpah to tell a customer to spend more upgrading to a version that won't fix their problems, especially when the issue has been reported for both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Photoshop.

Will I be ridiculed here on the forums for pointing this out like the last poster? Is it really that crazy to ask Adobe Support to, you know, support their products?

[Guest]

Not all 32 bit software will run (or correctly run) on a 64 bit system. The software may be pointing to a x86 folder to find something to run with but if the needed item is in Syswow64 folder it will either not run or it will have issues. Also the dll in the Syswow64 folder may match by name but it is written differently thus won't run when called up. Simple example but that is just the way it is. 

[jayp2007]

Have you even read this post and the issue it's regarding? People with both 32-bit and 64-bit are having the problem where their escape key doesn't work anywhere else in the O.S. when Photoshop is running. And people with both Photoshop CS3 and CS4 are having the problem. And of course it was first reported nearly 2 years ago... Not that this apparently matters to anyone at Adobe.

[Guest]

My response was focused on your post concerning your problem running CS3 on a 64 bit system only.

[Tomas_Eklund]

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?

[Tomas_Eklund]

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]

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.

[Tomas_Eklund]

Yes, I've experienced the same thing. Disabling hotkeys altogether in the Mobile Intel 945 "Graphics media accelerator driver" works to bring the Escape key back in other applications outside of Photoshop CS most of the time (thanks for the tip by the way), but not when Photoshop is busy with something that takes a little longer and brings up that progress bar indicator with a Cancel button. Then it hijacks the Escape key - system wide - and aborts whatever it's doing if the Escape key is pressed, even if it's within other applications.

[gener7]

Well,in that case I hope disabling the hotkeys at least fixed the majority of your troubles with the ESC key. I never have anything going on in Photoshop long enough to try using ESC elsewhere. Another thing you might want to try is to disable the "rotate screen" feature in your intel settings and see if there is further improvement.

Also be sure you do have the latest drivers.

[Asmodeus_Dhoine]

This issue is valid for Windows 7 x64 and PS CS4 x64 as well. NVidia drivers.

[Jimbo_Smith]

Ditto, I have CS4 installed on a new Alienware computer running 64 bit Windows 7 with nvidia video drivers.  The exact same plugins were installed on a 32 and 64 bit Vista machine with no problems, but as soon as I moved to the new computer, the "no escape key" phenomenon started. Some advice from Adobe would be most appreciated.

[kalmpact]

Same problem on PS 64-bit CS4, 64-bit Win 7 on a MacBook Pro (nVidia).

[mahoune]

I have disabled all programms with any appearence of hot keys. But it does not solve the problem with esc key swallowing outside photoshop.

And combinations (Shift+Esc; Ctrl+[) does not work for me.

Windows 7 64bit, CS4

Is there something else i can do with it?

I didn't try to remove plugin directory, 'cose it's silly, i wanna use plugins.

[Asmodeus_Dhoine]

This has been fixed in CS5. Finally!    

[Noel Carboni]

Asmodeus Dhoine wrote:

This has been fixed in CS5. Finally!   

I just confirmed that with Photoshop CS5 and Windows 7 x64.

-Noel

[diziunited]

Noel Carboni wrote:

function(){return A.apply(null,[this].concat($A(arguments)))}

Asmodeus Dhoine wrote:

This has been fixed in CS5. Finally!   

I just confirmed that with Photoshop CS5 and Windows 7 x64.

-Noel

Excellent!

[Tomas_Eklund]

Wow... That's about time (although I just cannot afford to upgrade at the moment).

The ineptitude of the Photoshop programmers is sometimes just astounding. Sure, it's a fine application and they have done a great job on many parts of it, but there are so many flaws that they just don't seem to care to fix.

And don't get me started on the versioning. They sell minor releases such as CS3 and CS4 as major, just so that they can charge extra money for the upgrade without really providing much new in terms of value. I can see how CS5 would be worth paying for but, as I said... Oops! Sorry for straying off topic.

[RicEyes]

So there's no solution for that ESC thing for my pricey CS4 except buying a pricey CS5?

Great!        ...not.

[psilocyn]

I can confirm that this happens in CS4 64 bit for Win 7 64. We have 3 people in our office on quad core Intel chips with various video cards and the second you launch Photoshop, the escape key no longer functions. This is the case even with shutting down every other application. Also, on our systems that have ATI cards, I tried disabling any hot key thing and again, nothing changes: escape no longer functions. All I have to do is open CS4, not even any docs. I have just a default install of CS4, I've never actually customzied anything or installed a plugin. The one guy we have on CS5 doesn't have this issue. Again, this happens with all other apps shut down, as well as any non-essential processes (as in, I'm not shutting down svchost.exe thank you). To repro it's simple: launch CS4, note that escape no longer functions in any app or in Windows. Close CS4, escape works as intended. The shift-escape trick does work for me.