Photoshop CS2 on Vista Home Premium

[Chrispy]

This is not a problem I'm having myself, but it's something my friend is having. Unfortunately he might be too shy to post himself.

(See attachment.)

Anyways my friend has Photoshop CS2 and has this big problem whenever he opens it up. The whole computer lags out and the colour depth looks like 256 colours instead of something like 32 million. When we close the program, everything goes back to normal including the colours.

I thought maybe it was a RAM/memory issue, but then again every other application works just fine - including ImageReady, which comes with Creative Suite. We've tried reinstalling, uninstall/delete everything/reinstall, Googling, and even changing the memory cache preferences in Photoshop itself.

My friend's comp is Vista Home Premium, DX10, GeForce 8400GS, 1GB RAM, with dual core processor. I haven't done anything like update his drivers or anything, and while it could be driver compatibility issue, I just want to see what you guys think first (plus it's not my computer so I'm a bit hesitant ), if you reckon it could be something else.

What do you guys think?

Edit: Forgot to tell ya, he did not have this problem with Photoshop at first (it used to work fine) - he reckons something has changed which made it this way.

[Hellfighter]

GeForce 8400GS i would check vista update drivers at their site nividia site

full update of the system would be good to cover anything!

really think its bad drivers for 3d part of the card or the directx (12) need tobe update besides MS frame network need updating too.

MS Frame network i think the last one they was working on was 4.5beta version

[Chrispy]

Just added this to the OP:

Edit: Forgot to tell ya, he did not have this problem with Photoshop at first (it used to work fine) - he reckons something has changed which made it this way.

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It probably is the drivers yes, but I just remembered this did not happen instantly and it went fine for him at one point. Just wondering what it is...

[EDGE]

Hmm, I've never had, seen or heard of this. I'll look into it for you.

[Steve]

try running it in xp compatability mode or something like that.

i have an app that when run it disables the aero theme but this is a weird issue for sure, maybe PS's colour profile (edit > preferences (if i recall correctly)). i think uninstalling PS still leaves your olders and settings, and in Vista god knows where the folders will end up :/

[Chrispy]

Never thought of XP compatibility mode - I'll be sure to tell him that.

I did see a colour profile in the settings and I saw two - Windows and Adobe. I do remember changing it but I can't remember if I actually restarted to see if it worked.

Next time I head to his place or whenever we'll see if there's any preferences we haven't deleted. I'll probably just search the whole C drive it.

Thanks dudes. Replies still appreciated.

[Chrispy]

Well he seems to have fixed the problem himself - I told him to do the compatibility mode thing for the .exe but what the problem was, was that it was set to 256 colours in the properties - so we were close!

Thanks for the help guys. Hopefully it's all fixed.