Problems with Fireworks CS3 in Windows 7 Pro 64 bit

Question

I have recently upgraded to Windows 7 Pro from Windows XP Pro. My Fireworks CS3 is having a problem. I cannot select items in the left side menu bar if I minimize or move the Fireworks CS3 window. If I have just opened the window it works, but minimize the window or move it and the toolbar stops working.
This problem is not unique to my machine. 2 other people are having the exact same problem. Here is the link to the Windows 7 forum:
http://www.sevenforums.com/software/26957-adobe-fireworks-cs3-issue.html
We sure could use some help. This is one of my bread and butter programs.

Answer 1

I'm happy to hear you have other work-around alternatives!
Businesses with mission-critical software usually are very careful to research that their software will run on any proposed new system or that alternative software is available. This is the main reason that Microsoft had to continue supporting XP longer than they intended. Too much business-critical software ran on XP but did not run under Vista and would take some time before it would be upgraded to do so...if at all.
If you have "bread and butter" apps, then it was your responsibility to make sure that you could run them once you upgraded. Adobe's software worked more or less as advertised for the operating systems that were available at the time the versions were released. That's reasonable. Expecting indefinite support into the future is not.
Fireworks isn't a $2000 product. Adobe continues product development, yes. They've moved on to CS4 and its patches. You can upgrade to FW CS4 for about $150. The system requirements for FW CS4 do not include Windows 7; note that Fireworks is only certified for 32-bit operating systems:
http://store.adobe.com/store/en_us/popup/software/fireworks4/systemreqs.html
However, there's a statement about CS4 applications (in general) working with Windows 7:
http://www.adobe.com/products/fireworks/faq/?anonymous_element_1=4
And you'd want to get the recent updater:
http://www.adobe.com/support/fireworks/downloads_updaters.html
speedtigger wrote:
... It is probably not a huge problem to fix for an Adobe engineer.
If the feature worked under Vista but does not work under Windows 7, then that means that the problem probably lies somewhere in how the program communicates with the OS. The problem is not isolated to the tens - possibly hundreds - of thousands of lines of Fireworks code, but in how that code interacts with the Windows 7 APIs. To solve this problem is not the work of "an Adobe engineer." It's the work of a project team. It's the work of a project team which would have to be pulled off development of Fireworks CS5 for a few months to resurrect the old CS3 code, get familiar with it, and try to track down and solve the problem, then package up, test, and release a patch . By pulling resources off CS5 development, CS5 would be delayed or quality inversely impacted. Since CS3 is not a current product for sale, I can't see Adobe making this investment. There's no return on it, where there would be a return on getting a quality FW CS5 out the door on time.