Bridge updated unexpectedly, now Photoshop Tools don't work

Question

Hi, all;
I have Web Premium CS 5.5, which I am quite happy with, but I also have a Cloud subscription so that I can use CS products on my laptop (my management decided it was easier to do that than dig up the physical media when my laptop was purchased).
Recently, I needed InDesign (not part of Web Premium) and installed it from my Cloud subscription. Now, when I select Browse folder with Adobe Bridge, it brings up the CS6 version, not the CS5.5 version. I wouldn't mind much, but the PhotoShop tools menu item doesn't appear (this is about 50% of what I do with Bridge). I can manually open the CS 5.5 version, but of course this is not as convenient as the right-click option, plus the CS 5.5 version is no longer stable (it crashes a lot).
How do I either get the PhotoShop Tools menu to work in Bridge? Alternatively, how can I get the right-click menu to point to my unstable version of 5.5? I can live with the instability if I can keep it open long enough to at least do what I need to do.
Thanks;
Amy

Answer 1

if PhotoShop tools can't be made to work properly from Bridge CS6, launching CS 5.1 from the right-click menu would be an alternate fix that would be acceptable.
Bridge works version specific, so CS6 is not easy to use with CS5.5 due to the start up scripts used for the menu Tools. Indesign, Illustrator and I believe also Premiere Pro are the other applications capable of working with Bridge and when only installing one of these apps from the Creative Cloud they also install Bridge CS6 form the Creative Cloud.
All settings for some reason auto select the newest version, on a Mac for example the finder always used to set itself to the latest installed Photoshop version as default application to pen with, I recall this was hard to avoid, maybe it is still the issue.
However you still have the CS5.5 installed that will offer the wished behavior.
You could try to start Bridge CS5.5 manual and the restart Photoshop holding down shiftoptionCommand (Mac, don't know the Windows equivalent) to reset its preferences and force them to the open CS5.5.
But personally I would not use the Browse in Bridge command in PS itself. I always have both Bridge and PS active and running from log in and never use the Browse in Bridge command.
Using this command does need to open Bridge or auto switches to the latest version, Having Bridge already up and running saves time in caching and with a work space customized with a folder panel in view is much easier to navigate
And of course, there is no objection to download also PSCS6 from the CC, I really don't agree with earlier versions being better. Only Bridge CS3 was a very bad version, yet it was in its way better then the first version of Bridge that appeared in CS2. CS3 had much more options but was very unstable (not unusable if you dumped the cache and prefs every few weeks).
The difference between Bridge CS5.5 and CS6 is a different Cache structure. It claims to be again faster and more stable but some Windows users on this forum sadly enough can't confirm this due to slow criteria building.
Personally I experience CS6 faster and better then CS5