Adobe and Microsoft apps are crashing. iWork colors are corrupt.

Question

I'm not sure if this is due to the Snow Leopard upgrade or because I had a HDD meltdown and restored from a time machine backup.
Every other app that I open is crashing. Microsoft Excel and Adobe Photoshop are crashing at will (in the background) and often when trying to save a file. Photoshop was giving me a license error but I resolved that with various hacks found online including deleting the FLEXnet folder.
iWork apps don't show proper colors with fonts, shapes, cell fills, etc. Most colors are showing as white. Blue is really the only color that is visible though it's not the correct blue.
Of course this is all on the eve of me having to finish a project onsite 1,000 miles from home. I'm pretty much stuck without the ability to do ANY work here. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

try starting up Safe Mode (It will take more time to startup in Safe Mode because it runs a directory check.)
If your apps functions correctly that way, go to System Preferences >> Accounts >> Login Items, and remove them. Boot normally and test. If not go to ~(yourHome)/Library/Contextual Menu Items and move whatever is there to the desktop. Then do the same with /Library/Contextual Menu Items. Lastly, try moving ~(yourHome)/Library/Fonts to your desktop and restarting.
Log out/in or restart, if that sorts it start putting items back one at a time until you find the culprit.
If the issue is systemwide then, you may be able to repair this by re-applying the10.6.1 stand alone update
-mj