Why PSE 10 works fine while PSE 11 crashes?

Question

I have used PhotoShop Elements (and Premiere) since 2003 (version 2).
I recently was lured into upgrading from version 10 to 11 by a couple of new features, but I had trouble from the beginning.
The first download would not start until I repeatedly accepted a series warnings that complained that something could not be located in the PLUGIN.dll .
The program worked but not well. For example it was not listed in Windows "Open with" list, I had to find the Topaz filters manually, etc.
Over a couple of weeks I downloaded it three times, from different sources and installed it again and again.
Now it almost works:
The multiple startup warnings are now reduced to one "The procedure entry point HandleWindowFont could not be located in the dynamic link library PLUGIN.dll" after which I have to repeatedly press OK.
PSE 11 now starts from pointing to a JPG file in Explorer but does not open the file. I need to click on the file again, after PSE 11 has started, to load the file.
Once loaded the file always starts in Quick Mode, instead of the last mode used.
But what really irritates me is that PSE 11 drops out suddenly, usually after I invested a lot of time in an image.
I click a command and suddenly, in a blink, I am on the desktop with no trace of what I have been doing. No trace of it in the "Open recently edited files" list.
It was so sudden that it took me several events to notice that this seems to happen when I return to the PSE screen from a plug-in screen.
So now I save my work frequently during the process of editing a file in PSE 11.
By the way PSE 10 works fine and is solid. Is there any way to adapt the new "refine edge" feature to the previous version?
For now I am back to using PSE 10 because PSE 11 is not worth the aggravation.
On the other hand Premiere 11 seems to work just fine.
I am using a DELL Precision 690 with 4 GB of RAM, running Vista 32 Business.

Answer 1

Try making a direct shortcut for the Editor.
On Windows, Right click anywhere on the desktop and select New >> Shortcut
Then click the browse button and navigate to:
"C:\Program Files\Adobe\Photoshop Elements 11\PhotoshopElementsEditor.exe"
Then click Next; then click Finish.
To launch, try right-clicking on the new desktop icons and choose “Run As Administrator” which often improves stability.