How can I diagnose an intermittent crash when saving in Photoshop CS5 in Windows 7 (64bit)?

Question

Hello,
I have been experiencing an intermittent crash of Photoshop CS5 in Windows 7 when saving. I cannot effectively reproduce the problem and am having difficulty diagnosing the cause of the it. I have updated Photoshop to 12.0.4.0 and still experience the crash. Can someone offer advice as to how to resolve this issue? It is troublesome since I lose all my work without any means of recovery when it happens.
Hardware:
AMD Phenom II X4 965 3.4GHz
8GB RAM
AMD Radeon HD 5450
Software:
Windows 7 Home Premium Version 6.1 (Build 7601: Service Pack 1)
Photoshop CS5 12.0.4 x64
Thanks in advance.
Susan

Answer 1

Hunt,
Thanks for the advice. Here is what I have done so far which has not alleviated the crashes while saving:
Only run the application as administrator
Clear the preferences file
Disabled virus checking on files I am using
Disabled virus checking on file writes (just in case the above was not enough)
Looking at the Event Viewer, these are 3 events logged around the time of the crash (I created a view to include all events within 10 minutes of the crash). Details below (pardon the xml - it is how the event is copied out):
Log Name:      System
Source:        Service Control Manager
Date:          3/24/2012 6:15:11 PM
Event ID:      7036
Task Category: None
Level:         Information
Keywords:      Classic
User:          N/A
Computer:      rocinante
Description:
The Application Experience service entered the running state.
Event Xml:
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
  <System>
    <Provider Name="Service Control Manager" Guid="{555908d1-a6d7-4695-8e1e-26931d2012f4}" EventSourceName="Service Control Manager" />
    <EventID Qualifiers="16384">7036</EventID>
    <Version>0</Version>
    <Level>4</Level>
    <Task>0</Task>
    <Opcode>0</Opcode>
    <Keywords>0x8080000000000000</Keywords>
    <TimeCreated SystemTime="2012-03-24T22:15:11.759925300Z" />
    <EventRecordID>43050</EventRecordID>
    <Correlation />
    <Execution ProcessID="612" ThreadID="3472" />
    <Channel>System</Channel>
    <Computer>rocinante</Computer>
    <Security />
  </System>
  <EventData>
    <Data Name="param1">Application Experience</Data>
    <Data Name="param2">running</Data>
    <Binary>410065004C006F006F006B00750070005300760063002F0034000000</Binary>
  </EventData>
</Event>
Log Name:      Microsoft-Windows-Application-Experience/Program-Telemetry
Source:        Microsoft-Windows-Application-Experience
Date:          3/24/2012 6:15:10 PM
Event ID:      500
Task Category: None
Level:         Information
Keywords:     
User:          rocinante\susan
Computer:      rocinante
Description:
Compatibility fix applied to C:\Windows\system32\DllHost.exe.
Fix information: RunAsAdmin, {f5ac3378-b8e4-4f9b-aa9a-d839e5b1ef06}, 0x40102.
Event Xml:
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
  <System>
    <Provider Name="Microsoft-Windows-Application-Experience" Guid="{EEF54E71-0661-422D-9A98-82FD4940B820}" />
    <EventID>500</EventID>
    <Version>0</Version>
    <Level>4</Level>
    <Task>0</Task>
    <Opcode>0</Opcode>
    <Keywords>0x1000000000000000</Keywords>
    <TimeCreated SystemTime="2012-03-24T22:15:10.221899700Z" />
    <EventRecordID>123</EventRecordID>
    <Correlation />
    <Execution ProcessID="4924" ThreadID="4796" />
    <Channel>Microsoft-Windows-Application-Experience/Program-Telemetry</Channel>
    <Computer>rocinante</Computer>
    <Security UserID="S-1-5-21-4242290351-10392916-364331048-1000" />
  </System>
  <UserData>
    <CompatibilityFixEvent xmlns:auto-ns2="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events" xmlns="http://www.microsoft.com/Windows/Diagnosis/PCA/events">
      <ProcessId>4924</ProcessId>
      <StartTime>2012-03-24T22:15:10.140898300Z</StartTime>
      <FixID>{F5AC3378-B8E4-4F9B-AA9A-D839E5B1EF06}</FixID>
      <Flags>0x40102</Flags>
      <ExePath>C:\Windows\system32\DllHost.exe</ExePath>
      <FixName>RunAsAdmin</FixName>
    </CompatibilityFixEvent>
  </UserData>
</Event>
Log Name:      ACEEventLog
Source:        ACEEventLogSource
Date:          3/24/2012 6:10:07 PM
Event ID:      0
Task Category: None
Level:         Information
Keywords:      Classic
User:          N/A
Computer:      rocinante
Description:
0000000053: 2012-03-24 18:10:07:112    Exception <Saving Xml Document>: Access to the path 'C:\ProgramData\ATI\ACE\Profiles.xml' is denied.
Exception  Called by: ATI.ACE.APM.Server.XmlDocumentSaver::SaverWorker                                                  processID:03216 threadID:(                ) domainName:(CCC.exe                    ) assemblyName:(APM.Server, Version=3.5.4268.23115, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=90ba9c70f846762e)
Event Xml:
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
  <System>
    <Provider Name="ACEEventLogSource" />
    <EventID Qualifiers="0">0</EventID>
    <Level>4</Level>
    <Task>0</Task>
    <Keywords>0x80000000000000</Keywords>
    <TimeCreated SystemTime="2012-03-24T22:10:07.000000000Z" />
    <EventRecordID>3086</EventRecordID>
    <Channel>ACEEventLog</Channel>
    <Computer>rocinante</Computer>
    <Security />
  </System>
  <EventData>
    <Data>0000000053: 2012-03-24 18:10:07:112    Exception &lt;Saving Xml Document&gt;: Access to the path 'C:\ProgramData\ATI\ACE\Profiles.xml' is denied.
Exception  Called by: ATI.ACE.APM.Server.XmlDocumentSaver::SaverWorker                                                  processID:03216 threadID:(                ) domainName:(CCC.exe                    ) assemblyName:(APM.Server, Version=3.5.4268.23115, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=90ba9c70f846762e)
</Data>
  </EventData>
</Event>
I am not sure if any of these are related to my photoshop use since none of them reference the executable. Yet, maybe they are inadvertently influencing its operation? I will look at indexing settings next and keep pressing forward.