Hmm, I didn't notice the "new computer" mention until I want back to look. I thought she was trying to get the old one to still work. So, liz, what's your setup? Did you buy a new computer? If so, belay my last set of instructions and get back with an update. ... View more

If you wipe the drive, you will delete the A/V automatically. Obtaining a valid copy of XP should not be all that difficult, although with Win7 now in production, supplies will dwindle. You get it by spending money, unfortunately. You may also be able to use another person's copy and run it as a 30 day trial, but maybe not any more . Of course, if it runs well, you will be faced with still another uninstall reinstall of all the programs and OS, but hey, that's the price of admission. You might try to see if BB will put a copy of XP on the computer. Just XP nothing else. Be sure that it has SP3 as well. Ask for a 30 day or even 15 day trial. It's long enough to determine if the HW is robust enough to warrant continuing. Get it home and install programs and utilities  as I have indicated. Then run it. Honestly, I would simply abandon the box and get a new one, but that's me. ... View more

You pretty well know the drill, liz. You are doing it with your hubby's computer! Now do the same thing to yours. namely download all important(and maybe not so important!) files to the external. Get a copy of XP. It still should be available (I know, I know. You have media center. Don't go there!) Stick the dvd in the dvd drive and follow instructions. Be sure to let it format the drive. When it is done. install photoshop first. Don't even install the A/V. Take it off line (unplug the internet connection) then install CS3,4.. After you are satisfied, install the A/V of your choice (the MS version is pretty good and it is free) then connect to the internet to activate. You should be fine. If not it's a HW issue for sure. ... View more

Well, your virus program should offer to sweep that drive. Plug it in, turn on the AV click the drive letter for that drive and do a sweep.Just don'r actually open anything on that drive until it is swept. You may lose some data if there is a virus, but then, what's the options? Is your 30 days over now? Can you take in tomorrow, snow willing? Oh, I am also on Facebook, but not a big contributor. ... View more

I sent you a message in your private mailbox here. Click on your name and it will take you there. ... View more

Been up since 5:30AM PST. Gotta take a nap. But the machine is probably on the edges of being legacy, two clicks from ancient! It's about the same age of the machine I replaced in Dec 2009. ... View more

What doesn't these days! There needs to be a default to this "Elevated" state. Maybe in the God thingy! ... View more

You might want to look around. Craigslist can be a can of worms to be sure, but I don't know anything else save the phone book.There should also be word of mouth networking as well.Perhaps HP has a list of locally approved shops. What is your computer's age? If it has a 6 series nVida card, it's not that new. Message was edited by: Hudechrome ... View more

Hmmm, maybe build ya a new computer! (Ooops! not suppposed to advertise here! ) Seriously, I know that if your box showed up here, I would offload all your files, wipe the drive clean and start over. I've done this (and build and configure hardware) in the hundreds at a very large cpu manufacturer. Every time we did a new suite of tests, even the exact same ones again, this was SOP. Wipe and re-install. (W-RI) (Just what the world needs! Another acronym!) ... View more

I ran it to see how it works and saw no problems, but then the re-installation of XP is only a couple of moths old. My DVD has SP2 on it so only 3 would be a worry, although it is pretty big. Worst case would be to re-install SP3. Does this tool work on Win7, or is there a Win7  version? Concerning the nVidia update, I had problems with that update on my 7300LE with CS3 but not CS4. I had to roll it back to run on XP/CS3. Win7 has it's own version (64 bit) and seems ok. I ... View more

Take it all off (the programs!). It is sounding more and more that conflicts abound and we seem to be fighting a rear guard action. I would uninstall anything Adobe at the moment, even Acrobat and start from scratch. Use the Cleaners for both CS3 and CS4 (Note to Dave: do you know if CS4 cleaner also does CS3? If so, it may shorten the procedure). I still feel going to XP Pro and not Media Center needs to be done as well. If you do so, then all starts afresh and no cleaners need to be used. ... View more

So far that's right. You should also have an AdobeCS4CleanReadme.pdf. The instructions are there and well done. Follow them meticulously. It works. ... View more

BTW, Dave, I checked out scannow myself, having not heard of it until your post. Impressive. I ran the test, it asked for the CD so I decided to copy the file to my HD and did the registry changes. It ran fine. ... View more

A new one would likely come with Win7, which is a good option for CS4, but it has to be well setup. At this point, I really wish I live close enough to actually work on the box myself. I'd make a horrible CS person, but just hand me the box....! ... View more

You are welcome. In my trials, I found deactivation of Adobe products not necessary if no HW changes are happening. Even uninstalling and re-installing the OS doesn't mess with it, but I suppose better safe than sorry! Liz, looks like you are going to get this licked! From my pov, I would not use XP media center and do only XP. Later down the pike, (as in monitor cal) Media Center doesn't like X-Rite products and they are pretty established in that dept. If you are strictly using the computer for graphics, surfign and the like but not TV HiDef movies etc leave media center alone. Just my 2c worth after watching  my neighbor's problems. It took several attempts on his part to make Media Center work, then he abandoned it (Finally!) ... View more

Since you have an HP. you might want to look at this: http://www.pctechbytes.com/hp-recovery.htm HP has a hidden partition which holds all the info necessary to restore to factory defaults on later model computers. I would type in Start>All Programs>HP Tools>HP PC System Recovery.as indicated in the Article and just see if you have this on your computer. You can exit before actually running the process, so it is safe to try it. If you have it, I would ask you to let us know before trying it. Also, have you considered going to HP for help with the system portion of your problem? What and where did you get the recovery disks? ... View more

All for the HAL of it, I suppose.... ... View more

Perhaps Media Center is contributing. The same fellow having dual boot problems had Media Center and had to wipe the disk clean because Media Center would not work well, for instance it completely refused to run the XRite calibration tool. I am in agreement with Dec9 (really wish I knew your real name! (Mine is Lawrence). Migrating to Win7 would be worthy, especially becaue you are running CS4. Nothing out of order for the start-up screen. . ... View more

Ouch! I'm trying to wrap my brain around this one. Maybe I need dope! So, let's start at the beginning. Who built your computer? Homemade or built custom, give us a rundown on it's components-mobo, cpu. and ram size particularly. I really need to know if you have dual boot. In fact, if dual boot is not done correctly all hell can break loose. My neighbor had just that sort of occurrence with an ill configured dual boot. So as I get it to date, you have both XP and Win7, possibly. Here's how to tell. Reboot and watch the process. If you have dual boot, the startup will pause with a black screen and white letters asking to pick Win7 or an earlier version.It will go with the default version if you don't pick, waiting a maximum of 30 seconds, or less if it was shortened as it seems from what the geek did to speed up boot. What also puzzles me is when you got it back from BB, you said you tried to go on the Internet, and couldn't. If no OS is present, you couldn't even try. You will have a blinking cursor on a black screen, maybe saying no os or missing component (missing ntldr or similar). That all means exactly that...no os, therefore you could not be presented with the opportunity to do anything other than shut down. So please fill me in here, and maybe we can get to the bottom. When listing the OS, please also indicate if the Service Packs are installed, and what Anti-virus package is running, if any. ... View more

Before writing them off, I would review the problems with them first. As I recall, they didn't do anything beyond malware removal except shorten the startup time, which usually occurs after POST, indicating that more than one OS is or was present on the computer. Another possibility is that in the Startup Options may have been altered as well. All this can be set to the default values, but I would, again, review their work with them and to reset everything to default, except Automatic Restart. That should remain unchecked so that if you have a serious failure (BSOD) the failure info remains on screen until you manually restart it. Good luck! and kudos to Dec9. ... View more

At this point, I would set the startup and services to Default and exit msconfig as Normal. It looks like you may have a number of items improperly set. Then try again. Are you running dual boot by any chance? XP and like Vista or Win7? ... View more

Love testing is an oxymoron. Ask any test engineer! As for untestable, it's a matter of perspective. And ingenuity. ... View more

Test, test test! ... View more

Well, I wouldn't call it a mistake! I've explored it sufficiently that I have tentatively ruled out equipment problems, so it comes down to limits of processes. I first encountered it years ago with a scanned image of a mountain reflected in a mirrored surface of still water. The banding in the sky's reflection blew me away. It's at least one of my legacy images that cannot be adequately handled in digital form. Curiously, returning to that site at the appropriate time with a digital camera did not show banding until I made the conversions. Then it was the sky that banded! I have some workarounds but they do not always work. ... View more

It would not make much sense to have 10-12-14 bit functionality for monitor purposes if the other output devices didn't. Banding for instance. How much aggravation would be encountered to see banding in a print which isn't present on screen? I would want to be forewarned. It would be interesting if klsteven could print examples of both images displaying banding in 8 bit but certain images in 10 bit did not band, on a 16 bit printer. I believe canon has 16 bit printers. Banding is my #1 concern these days. Agressive moves with Shadow/Highlight followed by agressive moves in Black and White produce serious banding (as well as other noise components, but the banding is a deal breaker). I could, of course, test it myself and see if the 16 bit file which shows banding on screen and in print shows on the 16 bit printer. Probably will. ... View more

Newegg shows separate pricing for 32 and 64 bit. If anyone knows otherwise, I'd like to know. http://www.newegg.com/Store/SubCategory.aspx?SubCategory=368&name=Operating-Systems ... View more

You install one or the other. Home Premium seems to be all that's required. I am running C3 and C4 (earlier) on Win7 Ultimate 64. No problems to speak of. Well, on one stitched image, XP did a better job, but Win7 was faster. Sorta like people "I can do it right or I can do it right now!" When you purchase, you pick which version you want, 32 or 64. 64 is more money. But I reapeat myself! Message was edited by: Hudechrome ... View more

Check this out. It saved a set of files for me. http://www.ontrackdatarecovery.com/file-recovery-software/ ... View more

I avoid as much as possible using externals as edit plat forms. They are backup and when I save to them it's a copy not a move. Then I always have the original ... View more

What is the name as seen on your computer? Open Windows Explorer and migrate to the folder and open it. Look for the file. What does the file read? It should read xxxx.psd or xxxx.tiff etc. if the dot is missing asn it says xxxxpsd, add a dot before the p in psd. If in doubt post it here. ... View more