Is it CS5 or my Computer?

[Leah]

Has anyone ever had to uninstall and re-install Photoshop CS5? If so, why?

Today it has really started dragging, to the point where I can't do anything without it freezing my whole computer up. I've ran hard drive cleaner and a virus scan, dumped a bunch of .tif files to free up some room and now I'm wondering if maybe I don't have uninstall PS and re-install it??

[kscwgirl]

have you rebooted? Mine does that when I haven't rebooted in a while.

[Leah]

I've been forced to re-boot several times today.

[SeattleSheri]

Did you install any new fonts lately? (not Darcy's but others)

[jacinda]

Have you emptied your trash bin? That can slow things down for me.

And, my computer, though new, doesn't like TIF files, but works good with PSD files. Whenever it starts dragging I have to close down and restart PS.

[Leah]

Originally Posted by SeattleSheri

Did you install any new fonts lately? (not Darcy's but others)

Yes...yes actually I did. I installed a couple new ones yesterday - Sofia and a few more {but I can't remember which ones}.

[misfitinmn]

My CS5 has been lagging for quite awhile now and I NEED to fix it. It takes me 10x longer to create pages now than it did when it was running normally. I'll be watching this thread!

[Leah]

I've got back through my fonts and uninstalled any of the ones I've recently put on. I'm shutting it down now, but we'll see how moody it is tomorrow. Thank you!

[Ginger_79]

Also, when was the last time you set-up your operating system? A computer does get slower over time and needs a clean sweep once in a while. And with programs that are already testing the limits, you notice it first. I'm facing the same thing right now, I have to do the spring cleaning next month.

Oh, and also check how fragmented your files are and see if you need to defrag. Might help as well.

[glumirk]

Are you rebooting because you have to, or to try to fix the dragging? Our computer runs hot when it gets dusty, so usually just blowing out the dust makes the difference for us. I suggest this because we had to do it just the other day and now my computer is running fast again.

[Leah]

I have never manually defragged this computer and it's 2 years old. *Yikes!*

I'm running the defrag right now.

How do I wipe my OS and re-install? I've got everything backed up, would need to find my programs, but I think I could do it. Is it hard (like too hard for just anyone to do it?) Time consuming?

*ETA* The disk defragmenter is saying that only 2% of my C drive is fragmented and that I don't need to defrag?

[Ginger_79]

Well, the elegant version of a clean new set-up is the one I rarely do. When you get a system up and running smoothly, you make a mirror copy with a back-up program. Then when the computer gets slow, you just wipe it, go back to the last well working copy, put in on and then just download a few updates from in between.

The messy - oh I forgot to do my back-up copy when the pc was still FAST - version is to indeed wipe and re-install. Unfortunately that does mean having to re-install all programs manually. It's not very complicated, but depending on how many programs you need to re-install it takes up some time. I do it the following way: all my set-up files from programs I downloaded are in a backed up folder on my EHD. Before I uninstall I make sure I have the newest version of my browser AND my anti-virus software in there. I also look into my program list and write down all, I want to directly re-install. Usually I also find some I safe for later, which means they never get installed, which means I never really needed them in the first place.

I install the OS from the DVD and then plug in my EHD and search for the anti-virus software and install it. Next comes the internet router software and I establish a connection. Before I open ANY browser though, I update ther virus protection. Then I install the browser, go over the windows updates and last come all my individual programs and folders.

[Tracie Stroud]

Resetting the preferences in PS can do wonders for draggyness. Just save any brushes, styles, workspaces etc. that you want to keep. Shut down PS. Hold down shift+ctrl+alt WHILE clicking to open PS. It will ask if you want to delete the preferences, click yes.

[Nettio]

Were you able to get this fixed?

I had a similar slow down due to a corrupted font so that was my first guess too. The other thing would be to check if your hard drive is getting full. I can always tell when mine is because Photoshop starts freaking out.

And I'll just say that in 5 years, I've yet to come across any Photoshop issue that was solved by uninstalling and reinstalling. Deleting fonts, resetting preferences and clearing out the hard drive are usually what's worked.