Problem/Symptom:
Adobe’s new CS3 (Photoshop and Illustrator mostly) experiences slow performance and lagging when opening or creating files regardless of size or type.
Solution:
Check your printers. this error is related to the default printer and print service. If you have an offline or unconnected printer, this is most likely your issue. Remove any offline or old/duplicate references to networked printers. If the printer is timing out, you will experience lag in Photoshop and Illustrator even on fast systems.
My Personal Experience: After installing the Adobe Photoshop CS3 Trial and using it for a little bit, I noticed it bogging very badly whenever I would create a new image or open an existing file of any type or size. After searching around for a while, I caught wind of it being printer related, more specifically the printspooler service in windows. I had recently moved and not hooked up one of my networked printers. After removing the offline printers (and printer that was trying to connect but would time-out) Photoshop opened files and created new ones with a snap!! I’m very glad to have resolved this issue, it was getting very annoying having Photoshop lag on a Dual Core system running 4gb of DDR2 on a Rapter! Anyways, glad to have it cleared up! For anyone out there having this same issue, check your default printer and also remove any offline printers or ones that cannot connect!
Note: If you decide to repost this solution on your site, please reference my post above by linking to me somewhere on your page. Thanks!!! Hope this information helps!
July 20th, 2007 at 12:24 pm
thanks man! i was having this exact same issue!!! finally resolved!!!!
August 5th, 2007 at 4:45 am
damn man…
I’d all but given up on finding a fix for this problem and then you came along…
worked like a charm…now CS3 runs like lightening.
many yhanks for sharing this info.
Mike.
August 27th, 2007 at 11:53 pm
This didn’t work for me… Running Vista. CS2 works great, but CS3 is slow. Bogs down the whole system. Takes 8 seconds just to open a small jpg. But the all other apps slow down too. Are there any other solutions? (quad core, 2.3ghz, 2gb ram, 712mb graphics card)
September 12th, 2007 at 10:03 pm
This didn’t exactly work for me, I do have a network printer but was online, however when I changed my default printer to a local printer then it fixed this slowness problem for me. Too Cool! Thanks for the info.
November 14th, 2007 at 12:27 pm
When I grow up I wanna be just like you!! This solution has regained my sanity… Love your work. Peace
February 11th, 2008 at 11:58 pm
Would’ve never guessed. Thanks a ton, my files are hauling and so am I!
April 10th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
I removed my network printer’s one by one and guess what? It totally worked. I am out of stone age. Thanx a lot.
April 18th, 2008 at 10:45 am
I thought you were crazy! I deleted some old printers no go. Then I started removing the rest of the printers one by one. It worked! I added them back in and it was still fine. Snap and the picture is open. Lifesaver!
May 11th, 2008 at 11:45 am
I am experiencing the same problem, tho it isn’t just opening PS CS3 its using it too. I don’t have any printers installed except the vista(32bit) defaults.
Im on a laptop HP Pavilion dv6000 w/ 2gigram dual core AMD, Nvidia geforce, PS cs2 ran with no problem. I have Adobe master collection and the rest of the programs run fine its just m,y PScs3 that is slow. Any help?
May 24th, 2008 at 12:54 am
This solution worked like a charm! I thought it was just me with this problem too, thank you so much for sharing! Really grateful
July 8th, 2008 at 2:50 am
setting my default printer to a local one solved the problem for me, images open instantly now
I just set it to the “send to one note” thing that was installed with vista.
I shouted with excitment haha everyone at work now thinks im insane!
July 8th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
Since the slowness is caused by a DEFAULT printer, which can ALSO be a network printer causing it to run slow, it’s not really a solution to delete a network printer.
The best solution is to set a LOCAL printer as your default printer. In my case, I set the Acrobat PDF printer as the default, and things are back to normal.
cheers.
July 14th, 2008 at 8:31 am
I’m still using CS2 on a dual processor iMAC. Illustrator is bogging down when it is opening and when I try to open a new document.
Does anyone know what I can do to rememdy this???
Thanks.
August 22nd, 2008 at 7:28 am
I’m running CS3 on an iMac 2GB and initially photoshop opened files fairly quickly. Now I read a book while waiting for a small file to open–about 5 minutes. I’ve read everything about the printer solution. However, I only run one printer (the default) but I have no idea how to make another one the default. If someone would be good enough to walk me through the steps of doing this I’d be most grateful.
Thank you, anyone!
September 2nd, 2008 at 12:55 pm
Thanks! I never would have guessed this was the cause of my problem. I suffered through opening and painting over 500 scenes since moving my printer to a network storage device and I never realized that this was causing the problem. I’m so happy to have it finally fixed
September 3rd, 2008 at 5:54 am
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
You’re amazing!
September 4th, 2008 at 8:38 am
dude, sweet. I had like 4 network printers all opening and timing out on me and i didnt know it. You rock.
September 7th, 2008 at 11:06 pm
WOW! CS3 now works like I though it was ment to on my intel quad core, 4gb ram, vista system!
Thanks heaps for this super simple fix! I had given up on trying to get it to work faster.
You made my day.
September 9th, 2008 at 1:23 pm
You ROCK!
I can’t tell you how much time that’s wasted for me.
Thank you!
September 10th, 2008 at 3:03 pm
Holy crap. The instant I saw “check your printer” I almost slapped myself. Why didn’t I think of that! I had like 8 defunk printers showing up. DELETE! This also resolved the same issues I was having with MS Office 2003 (slow as Moses opening files.) Sounds too easy to be true - but it worked for me. Thanks!
September 11th, 2008 at 6:28 am
Thanks!
September 12th, 2008 at 12:22 pm
Ya buddy, this site is the ISH!!
September 12th, 2008 at 12:24 pm
Oh ya and desertboard.com and honda-board.com is awesome man. You seriously rock my socks!
September 13th, 2008 at 8:09 am
This definitely works - but it doesn’t solve the problem! It’s incredible that Adobe doesn’t consider this a bug. So for one program on my computer, I have to change my printer settings and affect all the other programs on my computer. Why doesn’t Adobe just fix the problem? Each time I open Photoshop, I have to change my printer settings. Rediculous!
September 18th, 2008 at 8:18 am
AWESOME! Thank you!
September 25th, 2008 at 2:53 am
Thank you, this problem was really annoying !
September 25th, 2008 at 3:30 am
and what if i need to have all printers installed? any other solution?
September 25th, 2008 at 8:49 am
Dude you rock. How did you ever figure this out. Does Adobe know about this?
September 25th, 2008 at 6:04 pm
I too need all my printers.. So I can’t even test this….
Adode PDF
XPS Doc Writer
Samsung ML-2570
Well I guess I could dump the XPS writer…
September 26th, 2008 at 7:45 am
Man this is wicked. you rock.
September 28th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
thank u!!!!!!!! i really thought something was wrong with a specific sector in my new hard rive, or that even a virus may have affected program file.
September 29th, 2008 at 10:22 am
Thanks for the tip. I solved the problem now
October 5th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
THANKS A MILLION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
October 5th, 2008 at 5:57 pm
Great job. this fixed my problem.
I just bought a new computer and thought it was something wrong with the RAM but it was the default printer being networked and not connected.
Thanks heaps for sharing your findings with us!
October 10th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
Thanks a million - that solved a long standing problem.
October 13th, 2008 at 12:31 am
thank you, Thank You, THANK YOU!!!!!!
October 13th, 2008 at 1:28 am
This saved my day! thx alot!
October 16th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
you are a lifesaver
October 19th, 2008 at 7:01 pm
Not working..
CS3 was running great for a long while, now suddenly takes 5-10 seconds for every action I do. Did this printer thing many times and different ways to try it out. I cant make anything with photoshop it takes hours to do something that should only take 15 mins. I even downloaded and installed the 10.1 update thats suppose to fix and null this printer problem.
If someone finds a fix could you e-mail me?
November 6th, 2008 at 4:59 am
Thanks!
November 6th, 2008 at 9:21 am
great!
I LOVE U MAN!
i deleted all the printers on my Vista64, just left the epson network printer, then add a local PDF printer and set it as default.
Now my illustrator cs3 open and save like a lightning.
LOVE U LOVE U LOVE U LOVE U!!!
November 9th, 2008 at 10:20 am
Just what I’ve been looking for. TY TY TY.
November 10th, 2008 at 1:56 am
thanks for that tip. saved my day…
v
November 11th, 2008 at 7:10 pm
thanks for your help..
November 11th, 2008 at 8:47 pm
THANK YOU!
November 15th, 2008 at 5:07 pm
Where do I find the printers that are installed in my laptop?
November 15th, 2008 at 8:48 pm
This drove me crazy for two days. I thought it was a memory thing. Thank you!
November 20th, 2008 at 7:54 pm
My wife recently got a WI-FI All-in-one printer, and about a week or so later she was complaining to me that Photoshop CS3 was taking forever to load images. This forum saved the day! We set the default printer back to the old USB printer (which we still have connected), and it works just as it used to. I never would have guessed that a printer could be the cause for sluggish file opening. Thanks, everyone!
November 21st, 2008 at 1:42 pm
Thak you very much.. It worked perfectly.
November 25th, 2008 at 5:37 am
thank you very much!
cs3, xp pro x64
It was very slow! the worst was alt+tab or copy paste from illu to ps .. almost 3 minutes of waiting, new document the same
first i though it has something to do with x64 system, but this helped! thanks again
November 25th, 2008 at 10:55 pm
Thank you so much, its absolutely working fine. but what will happen if i install the printer again. Any clue.
November 26th, 2008 at 1:15 am
I LOVE YOU !!!
November 26th, 2008 at 9:29 pm
Legend! Cheers
December 2nd, 2008 at 6:55 am
THANKS!!!!
December 2nd, 2008 at 12:34 pm
Halleluja!!! Finally the problem is solved.
It’s a relief for such an impatient person like me.
Thanks!
December 3rd, 2008 at 10:27 am
WOW!!!
I can’t believe this is what was causing my PS for so long. Like everyone else has said…THANKS!!!
December 4th, 2008 at 4:42 pm
Thank you, I too thought I might have the Vista bug.
December 5th, 2008 at 8:11 am
THANK YOU THANK YOU and THANK YOU again
December 5th, 2008 at 11:28 am
Thanks a lot, I was desperate to find a solution to this f******* problem.
THANK YOU AGAIN.
December 8th, 2008 at 5:22 am
Many Thanks , really nice tips.
uttam
DMS
December 9th, 2008 at 8:31 pm
Thank you so much. Just got the same issue since 2 weeks because of a coworker who installed a printer on my computer
I spent countless hours on defragmenting my HDD, should have better checked for the issue on google earlier.
Cheers,
Francisco
December 12th, 2008 at 5:12 am
I love you maaaaan!
December 14th, 2008 at 7:29 am
Thank you!
I had similar problems with other issues regarding default printer being network connected and off line..
December 19th, 2008 at 11:03 am
You’re a legend, thanks mate.
December 30th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
Thank you for sharing the solution.
December 31st, 2008 at 2:31 am
Worked like a charm. Thanks!
January 3rd, 2009 at 12:19 pm
Worked great! I didn’t remove my networks printers, however, I just set my default printer to a Easy PDF Printer and CS3 worked great! Lightening Fast!
January 6th, 2009 at 4:48 am
Ditto!!!
What a stupid fix, but I should have been keeping up with unused printers anyway.
I can FINALLY use Photoshop on my main PC again!
Thanks!!!!!!!
January 7th, 2009 at 5:00 pm
Worked. Actually, there’s no need to delete printer that makes problem. Problematic printer should not be set as default.
January 10th, 2009 at 8:47 pm
Good god, I love you to death
January 13th, 2009 at 2:27 pm
Awesome dude, thanks sooooooo much
dealines here i come, haha 
January 16th, 2009 at 11:42 am
THANK YOU SO MUCH!
I had tried everything. I am so happy I came across your post. Problem solved!!!
January 20th, 2009 at 1:25 am
So many thanks, I could not understand why my PS was going so slow. I was about to do a full reinstall but that won’t be necessary. From the bottom of my heart: THANX!
January 28th, 2009 at 12:44 am
this is great….
January 30th, 2009 at 8:23 am
THANK YOU
February 1st, 2009 at 8:50 pm
Many thanks, It helped a lot. What a bugger this has been.
February 6th, 2009 at 2:20 pm
Aint that something. Ive been scanning bunch of old photos last few days and Photoshop was working perfect.
Other night I needed to print tickets and turned on my network printer, ever since then Photohop was dirt piss slow. Glad I did a google search on this problem.
February 10th, 2009 at 4:15 am
Not sure if setting up the cache helped or deleting ALL my printers on my laptop but Bridge is flying now! Never used them. Maybe I CAN go back to Lightroom!
February 12th, 2009 at 11:18 am
the comment:
“duntuk
Since the slowness is caused by a DEFAULT printer, which can ALSO be a network printer causing it to run slow, it’s not really a solution to delete a network printer.
The best solution is to set a LOCAL printer as your default printer. In my case, I set the Acrobat PDF printer as the default, and things are back to normal.”
Really works! thanks so much. strange how cs3 suddenly started running slow though…
February 15th, 2009 at 7:55 pm
OMG THANKS!!!
February 17th, 2009 at 2:14 pm
Thank you! I was about to reinstall the damn thing
February 17th, 2009 at 11:12 pm
Wonderful!. (kinda silly on Adobe’s part though) Cut the save time down to 2 or 3 seconds, instead of nearly 20!
And by setting the default to a local printer like the XPS writer, it’s obvious if I forget to change the printer selected in other apps.
February 23rd, 2009 at 1:25 am
Thanks sooooo much! This problem has been bugging me for months! it just suddenly happened~ I reinstalled, read all the Q&A from Adobe, changed settings, etc and it still limped like a one legged mice! I deleted all the offline network printers, didn’t work. Then I deleted ALL the network printers, on and off. It did the trick! Sweeeeeeeet!!!
February 25th, 2009 at 7:28 pm
Thank you for this article
March 1st, 2009 at 11:23 am
Thanks a lot!!!
March 7th, 2009 at 11:58 am
I had a very difficult time with this over the past few months. I spoke with Adobe and ended up removing Photoshop cs3 and dealt with the hassle of trying to reinstall it again and again. Now to find out it was only my printer.
After further investigation I found that the issue is with the compatibility of the printer drivers. You need to install the alternate drivers which are Universal printer drivers for your default printer. I am using a HP DeskJet which is wireless. Photoshop documents take 1 min to load. And Photoshop would freeze while it was loading. Now with my new universal driver loaded and set as my default driver I can open files instantly again.
This is a printer driver issue not a Photoshop issue. You must contact the manufacturer of your printer for assistance with downloading an alternate printer driver.
Happy computing!
Steve
March 12th, 2009 at 11:16 pm
thanks man! I’ve been searching the universe for this stuff…
Everything works fine now thanks to you!
Peace out!
March 16th, 2009 at 10:37 pm
Thanks the author for the tip.
Another helpful tip, if you you want to disable the automatic discovery of printers in Windows XP visit: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/320138
This is useful for laptops, because you end up picking up loads of printers on different networks you “visit” and may sometimes clog the Photoshop file opening procedure.
March 19th, 2009 at 2:18 pm
Thanks man, I had the same situtation. Now CS3 works smoothly.
March 25th, 2009 at 6:45 am
I LOVE YOU
April 2nd, 2009 at 8:18 am
thanks! i was having the same issue, removed my default printer that i have been having problems printing too, set my default printer to a known printer that works and TADA! CS3 is rolling just fine now.
April 3rd, 2009 at 6:28 pm
AWESOME AWESOME AWESOME !!!
April 10th, 2009 at 8:13 pm
I’ve been having this problem for awhile. I, always, have one offline printer and it did not used to do it. I had my Epson 7800 offline and turned it back on. I only have one offline but, again, it stays offline. I haven’t had this problem until recently. This didn’t fix my problem. Anyone else have a suggestion?
May 15th, 2009 at 2:12 pm
Thanks for the info, but I have to agree with others that this should be considered an adobe bug. There is no reason Photoshop should need to look at my printers to open a file–think of how often you work with a file and never EVER print it. I work with a laptop at two locations nearly every day. At one of them, photoshop and illustrator work great, at the other location I am screwed every time I try to open even the tiniest gif. Changing my print drivers twice a day is preposterous. Will try the above link on addressing it via windows. I hope that will help.
May 15th, 2009 at 3:20 pm
I definitely agree Astroby, this is an Adobe bug.
There is no reason Photoshop needs to check and test the printer configuration upon opening each document. Maybe once when you first open the application, but not everytime. Also, they could easily remedy the EXTREMELY long load time by setting it to time-out after a few seconds?
Seems like Adobe dropped the ball on this issue. I’ve tried mentioning it a few times on their boards but everyone just seems to point fingers. “It’s a microsoft error.” or “It’s a printer error.”
Hopefully they announce an official fix for this issue sometime in the future.
May 21st, 2009 at 10:16 am
If you are opening over a network, check the adapter speed settings.
I changed one from auto to 100-half duplex & files started opening like lightning!
June 6th, 2009 at 5:09 pm
I have been going crazy over how ridiculously slow illustrator has become when saving. I even spent valuable time reinstalling when your solution is so easy to do. Thank you very much! You’re now bookmarked!