Fresh install of Ilustrator CS6 (64bit) can't load Drop Shadow.aip

Question

Today I upgraded from Design Standard CS5.0 to CS6, and as I am running Windows 7 64bit I chose the 64-bit version of Illustrator.
Now every time I start Illustrator it reports "Error loading plugins. Drop Shadow.aip"; after clicking OK it starts normally, but obviously without the Drop Shadow plug-in.
Then, I open a new document, draw a rectangle and select Effect/Stylize/Glowing Edges; the first time in a session I do that, Illustrator produces a pop-up saying "The operation cannot complete because of an unknown error. [CANT]", but on OK shows the Glowing Edges work area without problems. After finishing the Glowing Edges effect, I can then select it in that session without getting the pop-up. As Drop Shadow is in the Stylize category of Illustrator CS5 I suppose the pop-up is a side effect of the failure to load Drop Shadow.aip.
My question is, how can I get the plug-in to load properly?
Jeroen

Answer 1

System: W7/64 Utimate, CS6
Hello there
we ran into the same problem with Illustrator CS6 (and Bridge CS6 crashing immediately after launch) and sadly none of the above tipps could solve the problem. Here's how I solved the problem ...
The problem seems to be related to W7-UAC and permissions (at least here). Like many other in the GFX-biz i use a fast stripe-set to carry the TEMP- and TMP-folders. The environment variables therefore pointet to "TEMP => s:\temp" and "TMP => s:\tmp".
This seems to confuse the good ppl at Adobe or Microsoft.
FIX:
a) Make sure your user-environment variables "TEMP" and "TMP" point to the default, as set up by Windows upon installation: this can be either
"c:\Users\{username}\AppData\Local\Temp" (which didn't exist here)
or
"c:\Windows\Temp"
(where "c:" indicates your system drive)
b) If your TEMP/TMP vars point to non-standard paths, and if you are unsure, make User and System-environment vars point to "TEMP => c:\windows\temp" and "TMP => c:\windows\tmp"
Question:
How to still use your fast stripe-set or SSD for temp-folder?
Just create "junctions" within the Windows-folder. Junctions are special links that point to different locations. To create junctions, do the following (but DO TAKE CARE, tipps are provided as is, whatever you do, you are responsible for it
a) open an Explorer-window as Administrator (right click and select "run as Administrator"), go to your Windows-directory and delete the "temp"-folder (and the "tmp"-folder too if there is one)
b) make sure the temp-folders on your fast drive/partition are created already
c) open a command-window as Administrator (right click and select "run as Administrator") and type the following commands (just enter bold stuff):
%SYSTEMDRIVE%   (press enter)
this brings you to the drive where Windows is installed on
cd %WINDIR%      (press enter)
this brings you to the Windows-directory
Once in the Windows directory, type ... "mklink /j temp [path to your temp folder]" so in case your fast stripe-set is drive "s" and the tempo-folder therin is called "temp" you type ...
mklink /j temp s:\temp
d) do the same for "tmp"
mklink /j tmp s:\tmp
Here's the setup that fixed it here ...
System and User-TEMP-variable points to "c:\windows\temp"
System and User-TMP-variable points to "c:\windows\tmp"
"c:\windows\temp" is a junction to "s:\temp"
"c:\windows\tmp" is a junction to "s:\tmp"
Additional bonus:
The above procedure also fixed the crashes in Bridge CS that occured as soon as the program launched.
Really sorry for the long post, but I hope it helps someone!
And yes, you are welcome, Adobe!