Suddenly my Photoshop will not launch. The main screen opens and will not build at all. I have an old version - Photoshop 5.0 and I have Windows XP vs. 2002 with service pack 3 on a 3 year old Dell with Pentium 2.8 GHz, 1 GB RAM. These are the steps I have taken: delete the Preferences file, disk clean and defrag, and system reset back two weeks. I also tried creating a new user account and logging on and launching on that acct - did not work.
Finally I decided to try uninstall and reinstall and then discovered that there seems to be no way to uninstall. If I go to Control Panel, Photoshop is not even listed on my currently installed products even though it shows my Adobe Flash Player, Reader, and Page Mill. I checked in the folder where it is installed and there is no uninstall program. I have noticed one strange item - each time I try to launch and then do Ctrl, Alt Delete to get to the Task Manager I note that Photoshop is listed TWICE in the applications list. Could it be trying to launch two versions at once?
I'd appreciate any assistance - launching or uninstalling.

Is it Photoshop 5? Or is it Photoshop Elements 5?

The latter is 15 years old, or so.

It is Photoshop 5.0 - purchased in 1998.

Mmh, sounds like it is not initializing a system DLL and thus never finishes launching. Did you change any of the settings for the app itself? I would, as a minor, right-click the Photoshop.exe and see if it has DEP enabled and whether using one of the compatibility settings (Windows95, Windows98) has any influence on the matter. It's also possible that SP3 or some other mini-update changed some settings somewhere, but since PS5 is really old, I have no recollection of what it actually required to run. It also may have used a custom installer, so it's not listed in the normal panel. But again, I barely can rember those days... ;-) Sorry for not being more helpful.

Mylenium

Thank you Mylenium. I am only moderately competent in handling computer problems (and usually timid) so I did the right click on the exe file and went to Properties. I cannot see any "DEP" and I looked under a few "advanced" clicks on two tabs - am I missing this somewhere? But I looked at Compatibility Mode which was grayed and selected Windows 2000 (as being the newest) and tried launching which was again unsuccessful. I do not understand what SP3 is or how I could deal with that.

I looked at Compatibility Mode which was grayed and selected Windows 2000
(as being the newest)




Try Windows 95

SP3 --> Service Pack 3, gets installed automatically via Windows Update
DEP --> Data Execution Prevention, a mechanism to not run suspicious programs if Windows does not recognize their signature

My suspicion was that you encountered a combination of the above two - for some reason, SP3 will enable DEP for all unknown programs on some systems, if it encounters an unsigned/ uncertified driver during the update process. This would in turn result in most "legacy" apps not launching...

Mylenium

Mylenium - thanks for the explanation - any solution to this dilemma?

John Joslin - I tried Windows 95 and it did not launch but surprisingly it is the first time that I did a Ctrl, Alt, Delete and saw only ONE Photoshop listed as not responding (see my original note).

You might search @Microsoft (for Data Execution Prevention?) to see if they have an article which describes problems and fixes

<http://search.microsoft.com/search.aspx?mkt=en-US&setlang=en-US>

Thanks John. I actually think I found some key information at the end of Mylenium's last note when he used the word "legacy". I did a search and went right to the Microsoft TechNet page on How to Run Legacy Applications Using Windows XP.
<http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb456991.aspx>
I think this explains that my problems did begin with the upgrade to Service Pack 3. I have done the most simple steps already and apparently I now need to download a tool. As I read the instructions I think this is beyond my technical expertise. So I am considering whether to get some technical assistance here to wade through this solution or to get a newer version of Photoshop. I have to say that it upsets me that this all has to happen. I know that 10 years is a "lifetime" in computer years but as a retired graphic designer I was quite happy with Photoshop 5 and am not ready for a major expense.