CS5 apps crash during launch in XP

Question

Hi,
I just bought and installed CS5 Design Premium and can't get it to work, including Photoshop.  Most of the apps crash.  They crash during launch (splash screen) and therefore never get going.  Each app seems to display different error messages.  One common denominator seems to be something relating to scripting (not sure what that implies - plug-ins?).  The only CS5 apps that don't crash are Bridge and Media Encoder.
Upgrading to 12.01 didn't help.  I tried rebooting, uninstalling and re-installing.  I ran a system scan with Windows Defender and no malicious software was detected.  I run a very clean system so no unusual programs running in the background and what little I do run in the background, I exited from.  I hadn't run a previous version of Photoshop (or any other program in CS5) so there were no Photoshop plug-ins to uninstall.
I do have Lightroom 3 installed (huge image database), which I have not yet uninstalled (far from trivial IMHO).  Lightroom does have three plug-ins (all disabled) which are the Canon and Nikon Tether Plug-ins and a Flickr plug-in.  I don't know how to uninstall these or whether it would affect CS5.
As an example, when I launch Photoshop, I get the following error:
AppName: photoshop.exe     AppVer: 12.0.1.0     ModName: scriptingsupport.8li ModVer: 10.0.0.0     Offset: 000d183a
InDesign fails as it says "updating Panels" and I get:
AppName: indesign.exe     AppVer: 7.0.0.355     ModName: support for javascript.rpln
ModVer: 7.0.0.355     Offset: 00036183
System Specs:
3.4GHz P4, 4GB PC6400, 1.5TB SATA, Nvidia GeForce 6600 PCIe, Asus P5WD2-e Motherboard, XP Pro SP2
I run Flash 10.1.53.64 and Quicktime 7.6.6, Java 6.0.2
When I launch Illustrator, it used to crash hard but now it stops while loading (Initializing Plug-ins, PDFFormat.aip) and displays a custom error dialog saying "Error loading plugins.  AISaveForWeb.aip DxfDwg.aip PGNFileFormat.aip.  Eventually it launches, apparently functional (haven't tested it).
Any help appreciated, thanks!

Answer 1

Corporate users are often very conservative, as many needs must be met before a new system can be rolled-out.  The reasons for being so conservative are rooted in good business, and in many cases are quite justifiable.
I have a friend who works IT at a railroad company, and he regularly has to support Windows 2000 machines amongst the majority of their systems, which are XP.  He tells me what he and a whole team of people struggle with every day.  I've been there.  I administered systems for entire Engineering departments myself.  One of the things I ALWAYS made time for, however, was breaking in new systems and getting to know them.  As a result, our people always had near state-of-the-art systems to work with.  It was even a selling point when our managers interviewed someone sharp who they were trying to get to accept an offer:  Our work environment was second to none.
In recent times we are starting to see why staying with an ancient operating system instead of "biting the bullet" and moving up to modern technology is proving to be more and more expensive.
Brushing aside Vista - for a while - might have been justifiable, but...
Hours and hours to make something work on XP?  New roll-outs of XP systems?  In 2010?  Are you kidding?
All that time being wasted to get old things working could and should be spent on embracing the new, and figuring out how to make it sing on key.  People have now gone before you and can authoritatively state that Windows 7 can be made to work.  A darned sight better than its predecessors in many ways!
Time is money.
-Noel