Adobe CS3 Responding Slowly Opening New Window, Opening Image of any Type or Size

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!

UPDATE: If you missed this one, the ability to view PSD files in Windows Explorer is always nice!

  • thxD00d

    thanks man! i was having this exact same issue!!! finally resolved!!!!

  • http://illustratorhelp.com/long-delays-opening-illustrator-files-in-os-x/ Long Delays Opening Illustrator Files in OS X

    [...] 5) Remove any offline printers. [...]

  • Mike1959

    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.

  • mptt

    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)

  • marvinandcandy

    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.

  • Galaxy

    When I grow up I wanna be just like you!! This solution has regained my sanity… Love your work. Peace

  • P3PP3RM4N

    Would’ve never guessed. Thanks a ton, my files are hauling and so am I!

  • gasssa

    I removed my network printer’s one by one and guess what? It totally worked. I am out of stone age. Thanx a lot.

  • http://www.co.weld.co.us ripleyc

    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!

  • Henchfry

    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?

  • yumi-chan

    This solution worked like a charm! I thought it was just me with this problem too, thank you so much for sharing! Really grateful :D

  • promanex

    setting my default printer to a local one solved the problem for me, images open instantly now :D

    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!

  • 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.

    cheers.

  • lynb

    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.

  • mebacat

    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!

  • pixelpainter

    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 ;)

  • http://semcriatividade.com/tchago tchago

    Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
    You’re amazing!

  • Izzy

    dude, sweet. I had like 4 network printers all opening and timing out on me and i didnt know it. You rock.

  • Joel

    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.

  • http://Astrocenter.com Paul

    You ROCK!

    I can’t tell you how much time that’s wasted for me.

    Thank you!

  • Gary

    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!

  • fish5

    Thanks!

  • Zach

    Ya buddy, this site is the ISH!!

  • Zach

    Oh ya and desertboard.com and honda-board.com is awesome man. You seriously rock my socks!

  • George Nansor

    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!

  • Soulhuntre

    AWESOME! Thank you!

  • http://www.nuk.lt thisisme

    Thank you, this problem was really annoying !

  • tominko

    and what if i need to have all printers installed? any other solution?

  • Man

    Dude you rock. How did you ever figure this out. Does Adobe know about this?

  • MattH

    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…

  • http://www.johnibanez.net Jp Ibanez

    Man this is wicked. you rock.

  • Simon T

    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.

  • kalyan

    Thanks for the tip. I solved the problem now

  • http://www.interactonline.com.au Visual Impact Web Design

    THANKS A MILLION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  • Mitchell

    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!

  • Niall

    Thanks a million – that solved a long standing problem.

  • Ken

    thank you, Thank You, THANK YOU!!!!!!

  • Bing

    This saved my day! thx alot!

  • Liam

    you are a lifesaver

  • http://www.jockingteens.com GannMan

    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?

  • Cussy Prusher

    Thanks!

  • http://wkwrz.blogspot.com wakowrz

    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!!!

  • ku

    Just what I’ve been looking for. TY TY TY.

  • vladi

    thanks for that tip. saved my day…

    v

  • ichigo

    thanks for your help..

  • sarah

    THANK YOU!

  • Where?

    Where do I find the printers that are installed in my laptop?

  • Carol

    This drove me crazy for two days. I thought it was a memory thing. Thank you!

  • http://blog.amodernfable.com/2008/11/20/this-is-why-my-photoshop-cs2-kept-lagging/ A Modern Fable :: Adam J. McIntyre discusses user experience, web development, web design, CSS, HTML, and JavaScript » Blog Archive » This is why my Photoshop CS2 kept lagging…

    [...] Bless you, sir. I can now open 1kb JPEGs in under 1 minute. (The short of it: if you have a slew of remote network printers mapped, Adobe Photoshop seems to want to query them all every time you open a file. Blow them all away and it will be good as new.) addthis_url = ‘http%3A%2F%2Fblog.amodernfable.com%2F2008%2F11%2F20%2Fthis-is-why-my-photoshop-cs2-kept-lagging%2F’; addthis_title = ‘This+is+why+my+Photoshop+CS2+kept+lagging%26%238230%3B’; addthis_pub = ‘ayjayem’; [...]

  • Don

    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!

  • Mb

    Thak you very much.. It worked perfectly.

  • dancer

    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

  • http://www.tafseer.com tafseer

    Thank you so much, its absolutely working fine. but what will happen if i install the printer again. Any clue.

  • imadeit

    I LOVE YOU !!!

  • http://www.keyimagery.com micool

    Legend! Cheers :)

  • Allan

    THANKS!!!!

  • http://www.lilithlove.com Lilith

    Halleluja!!! Finally the problem is solved.
    It’s a relief for such an impatient person like me.
    Thanks!

  • http://www.guavalab.com GuavaLab

    WOW!!!

    I can’t believe this is what was causing my PS for so long. Like everyone else has said…THANKS!!!

  • http://www.tungstenworld.com socceruci

    Thank you, I too thought I might have the Vista bug.

  • http://BRAZIL Ricardo

    THANK YOU THANK YOU and THANK YOU again :)

  • http://chasegassert.com/slow-photoshop-oooooohh-yeaaaahhhh/ Chase Gassert » Blog Archive » Slow Photoshop? OOOOOOHH YEAAAAHHHH

    [...] one of the most popular posts across all my blogs at the moment is Adobe CS3 Responding Slowly Opening New Window, Opening Image of any Type or Size. A friend of mine just ran into this issue a few days ago and what did I tell him? Check my blog! [...]

  • Yvan

    Thanks a lot, I was desperate to find a solution to this f******* problem.
    THANK YOU AGAIN.

  • http://www.digital.com.np uttam kc

    Many Thanks , really nice tips.

    uttam
    DMS

  • Francis Gabon

    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

  • http://www.webdesignbeach.com Ognjen Knaus

    I love you maaaaan!

  • Ivan

    Thank you!
    I had similar problems with other issues regarding default printer being network connected and off line..

  • Rob

    You’re a legend, thanks mate.

  • Cristian

    Thank you for sharing the solution.

  • Eric

    Worked like a charm. Thanks!

  • Harold

    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!

  • psybertech

    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!!!!!!!

  • Dragan

    Worked. Actually, there’s no need to delete printer that makes problem. Problematic printer should not be set as default.

  • Brian H

    Good god, I love you to death

  • Adam

    Awesome dude, thanks sooooooo much :) dealines here i come, haha :)

  • Kristi

    THANK YOU SO MUCH!
    I had tried everything. I am so happy I came across your post. Problem solved!!!

  • http://www.fotograferen.net Rutger

    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!

  • Abhiranjan

    this is great….

  • kinkazu

    THANK YOU

  • Hardi

    Many thanks, It helped a lot. What a bugger this has been.

  • Jerry A

    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.

  • Ken

    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!

  • zehra

    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…

  • Justin

    OMG THANKS!!! :)

  • Vince Somoza

    Thank you! I was about to reinstall the damn thing

  • Anth.c

    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.

  • G

    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!!!

  • http://huyvq.com Huy.VQ

    Thank you for this article

  • Tom

    Thanks a lot!!!

  • Steve

    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

  • makouvex

    thanks man! I’ve been searching the universe for this stuff…
    Everything works fine now thanks to you!

    Peace out!

  • Milos

    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.

  • http://wyrwijsie.pl Jakub

    Thanks man, I had the same situtation. Now CS3 works smoothly.

  • http://www.bugmenot.com Jordan

    I LOVE YOU

  • http://www.robs3dblog.com ijoer

    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.

  • cvp

    AWESOME AWESOME AWESOME !!!

  • Shirley

    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?

  • Astroby

    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.

  • http://chasehosting.com admin

    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.

  • Tim

    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!

  • http://www.alteredego.tumblr.com Porsh

    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!

  • tan

    Thanks!! you solved my headache! God Bless you!

  • http://bons.centusco.com Concentus

    Thanks! This was a big help. Fixed my problem immediately.

  • http://chasehosting.com admin

    Glad to have helped, thank you kindly for the donation!

  • http://www.bradcoughlin.net Brad Coughlin

    Joining in the love here. I have an HP network printer that was set to the default, I switched it to the Microsoft XPS Document Writer since I’m not on my home network and…BAM! New files are opening fast again. Thanks.

  • Richard Tam

    Thanks for your information, I tried many methods to speed it up but all fail! You help me to resolve the slow problem!! Thanks a lot!!

  • MundSiew

    wow! this work just great! thanks alot and appreciate it alot! its been really bothering me! and you just save my day!

  • Dave

    Worked like a charm! Thanks so much, i was sooo annoyed by this problem and now its solved :-)

  • http://www.kreationsbyran.se Peter

    This as been bugging me for a while now. Thanks a lot for the solution!

  • http://- Jody

    Thanks dude, this has worked like a charm!! had this problem for a month – really annoying! thanks a bunch :o )

  • RAS

    Here is the solution that worked for me (Windows XP, Photoshop C4, Files on a network drive opened slowly and even Explorer ran slowly over a network.

    SOLUTION:
    Right-click My Computer.
    Click the Hardware Tab.
    Click Device manager button.
    Click the plus sign next to Network Adapters.
    Right-click on [Intel(R) . . . ] Network Connection and click Properties.
    In the Speed and Duplex dropdown, select Auto Detect.

    RAS

  • http://ronbigus.com ROn B

    Thank you JESUS
    You are truly my Saviour.
    I have spent countless hours over the last 6 months trying to get My CS3 to perform like it used to and your tip was the true answer.
    My 4gb of Ram 1mb Graphics card and dual channel processor was taking 30 sec to load a 5mb pic. Now it is almost instantaneous Again, all because I connected a printer locally that used to be through a network and didn’t delete the old connection.
    Where do I send the Check?

  • http://chasehosting.com admin

    Glad you found my post helpful, Ron. I remember how annoying this issue was for me! I’m sure you jest about the check, but if you’re feeling generous.. there’s a donation button at the top right of this website. :)

  • http://n/a Harlsen

    On a Mac, try deleting the file ‘com.adobe.mediabrowser.plist’ from your Preferences folder:

    Users/(user name)/Library/Preferences/com.adobe.mediabrowser.plist

    This should solve the speed issues for both Illustrator and PhotoShop.

  • ricardo

    omg thank you!!! ^o^ I thought I had to reinstall CS3. Thank you!!

  • Rafael

    Thanks man, how we say here – VALEU MANO!!!!!

  • vegas

    yay! it worked thank you!!!!!!!!!!!

  • dlong

    Change it to a local and it worked great, my laptop is now working great with CS3. Thanks for your help, saves me from almost rebuilding my laptop out of frustration.

  • Eric

    Hallelujah. Don’t know why I didn’t search for a solution to this sooner, it’s been bugging the hell out of me for ages (as it turns out, apparently ever since January when I replaced a printer in my house). I tried changing all of the settings in Photoshop that could reasonably be related to this with no success whatsoever. Never dreamed that it would be related to a leftover printer that was still configured on my computer, even though it wasn’t set to be my default printer and my default printer was on and working normally.

    Anyway, this definitely did the job. Still seems like CS3 opens files measurably slower than older Photoshop versions, but the difference between how long it was taking vs. how long it takes now to open a file, is night and day, particularly when processing a large batch of files (ugh).

  • adambomb

    Thank you!!! You rock!!! Saved me from re-installing as I thought that’s what was needed.

    Can’t say thanks enough!

  • jerimy

    can anyone explain exactly how to set the default printer?

  • bookworm

    thanx a lot, it works!

  • md

    WOW! This tip worked like magic.

  • Aldrin

    Thanks man! I was thinking why all of a sudden my Photoshop became too slow when opening files and more. Thank you so much!

  • Bronco

    Didn’t work for me. CS3 is dreadful.

  • Roselily

    Awesome, thank you so very much, you saved me from going crazy !!!

  • Kent

    Thanks, amigo, I was about to switch back to CS2 because of this problem.

  • Sertoplas

    You saved my tons of time man.

  • Joe

    Really a pisser. I did everything everyone else spoke of and Adobe help was no help at all.Our network printer is a HP 7200 all in one.I changed the default printer to the XPS Writer for opening and working on files but when I go to print and highlight the HP printer the printer dialoge box now takes forever to open. Any solution to this? Has anyone tried to uninstall/reinstall the printer drivers and had success?

  • http://www.snowdonia-som.com Jonno

    Photography being my hobby and an avid user of Adobe Photoshop CS3 that enhances my work. I upgraded my operating system to MS Windows 7 Ultimate from MS Windows Vista Home edition. I do have a HP Photosmart C8180 (All in One) Printer and I also have a Canon Pixma iP8500, I had the HP network printer as my default printer, so I made the Canon printer as my default, and true to the solution my photo files and RAW files jumped into CS3 as soon as I hit my mouse button!

    But, I strongly feel that this is an Adobe bug within Photoshop CS3, why it has to test my printer’s configuration each time I don’t know, the first time I open a document fine, but there is no reason. I note that Adobe is pointing the ‘Bug Problem’ as being a MS Windows problem, or even a printer problem. Adobe, being such a large organisation should officially announce an antidote for this Bug!

    Congratulations for coming up with this solution, I didn’t feel like upgrading to CS4… Well not just yet!

    Kind Regards!

  • Amber

    Never did I ever think that this silly solution ould fix the problem! All I had to do was go into my control panel, into printers and use a different printer as my default! WTF! All of the suden the last few days my CS3 became unbearably slow and I almost gave up on it completely until I searched and found this….THANK YOU!!!!!!!

  • Tina

    My hat is off to you… This problem has been so annoying for the last year. Even very large projects open lightening fast now. Cheers to you for posting this & making me a happy designer again!

  • http://www.savingabundle.com Cameron Scott

    I tried resetting my default printer to a “good” printer and that did not work. I tried nearly EVERY printer (Adobe PDF, Microsoft Image Writer, I even installed a DUMMY printer).

    What finally DID work was ridding myself of the few printers that consistently could not connect or were offline.

    It’s a bummer that you have to go through multiple printers (if you have more than a few–especially networked ones), but I am confident this is the major reason the files open slowly. I traced the whole file-opening procedure using SYSINTERNALS Process Monitor, and I found that the delay happened while Windows access C:\WINDOWS\system32\comdlg32.dll. JUST before it accessed that file, it grabbed my default printer and ran a few checks on some printer files.

  • Ellen

    Thank you thank you … seriously…. thank you !!!!!!!

  • mjcrow

    You are brilliant….I was about to upgrade to Windows 7 just to try to solve this problem, THANK YOU SOOOOOOO MUCH!

  • U ROCK

    DUDE, Thats been bugging me forver. Adobe seriously needs to fix this bug. Adobe phone support is clueless. Figures it would be something like that. Great fix!

  • zanchit

    have cs3 and it has been running fine. suddenly in last 2 weeks it has taken a nose dive and takes 1 minute to open a 1mb jpg which is on c drive. only have 1 printer which is networked but have tried ‘unsharing’ it and it makes no difference, have tried updating printer driver and graphics card driver but has made no difference.
    recent software installs would be:
    skype
    malwarebytes
    adobe flash 10 plug in
    mozilla firefox 3.5.7
    usb webcam
    debugging tools for windows
    itunes 9 (i think)
    quicktime update
    apple application support
    apple mobile device support
    and a number of office 2007 updates.

    would be really grateful if anyone could advise what i can do next as it is impossible to work on cs3 with it being so slow.

    many thanks

  • DonS

    From Harlsen:

    “On a Mac, try deleting the file ‘com.adobe.mediabrowser.plist’ from your Preferences folder:

    Users/(user name)/Library/Preferences/com.adobe.mediabrowser.plist

    This should solve the speed issues for both Illustrator and PhotoShop.”

    Thank you so much. Everything on the internet refers to this as a printer problem but on our macs it had nothing to do with printers. I did notice that if I disconnected from the network Photoshop worked great. (Never did have a problem with Illustrator or InDesign). Now Photoshop flies. THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!

  • Pablo from Costa Rica

    Thank you!!! You rock buddy!!! I was about to set my PC in flames, I could not believe it!!!!! Then you gave me the answer!!!!! I love man!!!! THAAAANNksSS!!

  • http://ipqart.com.au/blog/ Nikki

    I *heart* you. Seriously. I’ve been going slowly insane since my CS3 started running slowly a few weeks ago. This fixed it in seconds. Thank you!

  • Anders

    Thank you sooo much!!
    Had this lagging issue for while now…
    I could never have guessed that the printers where involved! :S
    Working smoothly now! THANKS!! :D

  • Paul

    I have had this problem with CS3 for a couple of months now and had even re-installed the program but after reinstalling the issue was not solved, thought it could even be a hard drive issue. Finally read your solution, and changed the port settings on my default printer which is an HP photosmart set up on a wifi network. All I had to do was to change the port setting to USB port (even though it isn’t connected) and now CS3 opens files as fast as it used to, in a blink of an eye. Thanks for the solution.

  • http://www.a2gdesigns.com Mel Tallagsen

    You Rock bro…Thank you Very Much….

    Anything I can help you with… You just

    Yell…

  • http://MoreIsWeb KC

    Some addon for the solution.
    Since I’m using a network printer so it’s not possible for me to remove it.
    In this case, what I did is change the default printer of Photoshop to MS office XPS or Adobe PDF.
    That would solve the problem too.
    Thanks.

  • http://www.pcdagency.com Chris

    I have the same problem in Illustrator, running on a Mac.

    Did a search for com.adobe.mediabrowser.plist but it didnt show up.

    We have a couple of networked printers.

    When I disconnect the network and go back to an already open illustrator file that has slow down in it, it goes back to normal. So I am guessing its a network issue but not sure what??

  • Tee

    Fixed my issues, great =]

  • Debbie

    Hello,
    I am running Win XP and PS CS3 and both are extremely SLOW!!! I have tried all the things listed here and nothing helped. Is there anything else I can try before throwing this equipment out the window??? Thanks in advance. :)
    Debbie

  • Jason

    I’ve had the same problem as everyone else here. I changed my default printer to a “dummy” one and CS3 opens immediately. The problem I have is when I try to print, I have to change the printer to my (former default) printer and when this happens, my computer slows down to the point where it locks up when attempting to print. What can I do about that?

  • http://rdndrc.com rdndrc

    dude! you’re a GOD! thank you!

  • http://twitter.com/jitendravyas jitendra vyas

    Thanks for this tip. My photoshop cs3 is working smoothly now

  • http://770sportshop.com Daniel

    WORKED! wow, thanks, I thought I was going to spend hours on fixing this, happy to have found this article first! Thanks again, and again!

  • Roger

    Yes, man! This is the most usefull and straight forward solution ever found in an Internet article! Photoshop was driving me mad!!

  • Tom

    Great! problem fixed! But hey wait a second, why the hell is CS3 checking my printer at the first place. This weird behaviour should be fixed by Adobe at the first place.

  • http://none Sean

    this didnt work for me. i went to printers and faxes and got ridd of the printers i dont use and photoshop is still unuseable. any help?

  • Craig

    Yes! This worked – thanks for publishing the fix!

  • ShadowBall

    I have never even had a printer installed on my laptop, yet under the Printer and Faxes tab in the Control Panel, I had five printers listed. They are: Adobe PDF, some kind of HP printer that was the only one listed as offline, Intuit Internal Printer, Microsoft Office Document Image Writer, and Microsoft XPS Document Writer. All the ones except for the HP printer say they are ready…I didn’t delete those because I wasn’t sure if they are necessary or not.

    But I got rid of the offline one and Illustrator – which often takes about two or three minutes to start up (and always must be closed with “End Now” because it decides to enter “Not Responding” mode upon trying to exit) popped up in about ten seconds. Should I remove those other “printers” too?

    Thanks very much for the tip. It’s so nice to use Illustrator and not have it take 30-60 seconds to think about a pen tool line or 2-3 minutes to think at startup.

  • Actionman

    WOW!
    I can’t thank you enough.
    So much frustration has just disappeared.

  • yamaniac

    Excellent solution mate! I never would have had a wildest thought that it would be my printer! lol!!! Cant thank you enough!

  • Shaun

    Awesome fix. You rock! Tried and it was an eye candy.. Thx a ton (How do you people find solutions like this) ^_^

  • Hagrid

    Thank you!

  • graphein

    ¡Nunca me lo hubiera imaginado!
    This issue slow dramaticaly my creative work
    Thanks you very very very much!

  • Javi

    Thank you !!!

  • Guest

    Thank you soooo much!!!!!!!!!!!

  • Rahphoto

    I don’t have a printer connected and saving my images in PS is going really really slow… any other tips? Thanks!

  • Designbuildguy

    I had a similar problem, my chance, i just happened to turn off my wireless connection and it sped up instantly, no more lagging! I use my laptop at 2 offices, so i’ll have to figure something out, but that seems like the network printer thing may be the cause. Thanks so much!!

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_WONVMESWEFHTUZYWD4XADOSWDY Allaiyah Weyn

    As of September 2011, this years-old advice still works when everything else has failed. Thanks :D

  • Thank U!

    Thanks a lot! I experienced the problem after your company changed printers. All of a sudden my Photoshop slowed down on opening any PSDs or even creating blank canvases. I deletet the old network printers and everything works fine again. Thank you very much!

  • http://www.chikitphotography.com Friendly Neighbor

    Amazing! Thanks soo much, I’ve been having that problem for some time and have no idea what was causing it. Thank you!

  • Sihozg

    Thanks :) ))

  • Edaly_

    Worked! Great advice, well presented. You do a service to the internet..

  • Anonymous

    Glad to see everyone still finds this tip useful!! I’m very surprised Adobe hasn’t fixed this issue yet… I’ve even submitted a bug report to them about it and have yet to hear anything back.

  • Redcopaniket

    i hav no printer but status is showing ready in control panel ! thn wat shld i do ?

  • Mo Deki

    very stupid design

  • Rosie

    Sorry Steve, but this is not simply a ‘printer driver issue’ otherwise the huge lag and frequent ‘not responding’ would happen in other programs when printing and not just CS4. So clearly an Adobe issue IMHO.

  • lei

    at this moment, my adobe is still performing slow…i already check my printer, deleted the offline, i even uninstall and install it, but still slow whenever i open new files/images

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