Photoshop cs5 64 bit is crashing

Question

Hello, I have the trial version of cs5 and it installed succesfully without any problems. I went to the program files (x86) folder and opened it from there without a problem.
However, the 64 bit ver in the programs folder keeps crashing as it tires to initialize. How can I fix this?
my specs - windows 7 64 bit home premium
asus g73jh-a1 laptop
i7-720qm
ati 5870
8 gigs of ram

Answer 1

Nice system!
I'm thinking perhaps the ATI 5870 10.6 drivers have a glitch with Photoshop and OpenGL.
There's a registry tweak to prevent Photoshop from trying to use the OpenGL system, which it will do by default unless it is disabled (or Photoshop itself disables it).  The crash is probably preventing that disabling operation, and the following could help you isolate the problem to whether OpenGL is involved.  Basically you're adding one DWORD registry value:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Adobe\Photoshop\12.0]
"DisallowOpenGLWindows"=dword:00000001
If the above does allow you to start Photoshop, then you'll want to go into Photoshop's Edit - Preferences - Performance menu and disable OpenGL there, after which you can remove the above tweak via removal of the DWORD value.
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Adobe\Photoshop\12.0]
"DisallowOpenGLWindows"=-
As with any Windows registry edit, be extremely careful, and don't do it unless you feel comfortable with your abilities to recover from registry editing mistakes.
You will, of course, want to recheck this for the ATI 10.7 release.
-Noel