Expert: Amy - 3/3/2004

Question
I'm not able to select objects in a form I'm working with. The % CPU utilization goes up in the 90s and the RAM stays in the 70s. I'm running it on a Dell 1.7GHz with 256MHz RAM. No viruses.

Answer
Hi Bob.

I think what you may be experiencing is a background application conflict.  Probably Norton.  Do you see the hourglass cursor a lot?

If you have Norton Recycle Bin protection turned on, either turn it off or add *.lst (that's L as in List) files to the list of Recycle Bin Protection exclusions (right click on Recycle bin to get Properties).

You and I have the same system set up but I'm not sure if you run WindowsMe or what.  Incidentally, I found the problem worse on my NT machine at work even though I had more physical memory. Turning off Recycle Bin protection really helped there.  

I find AI 9.02 to be a huge memory hog, no matter what I do. I turn off every background utility I have and still Illustrator eventually puts me into the red zone in the system Resource Monitor. It hates my Eudora mail client, that's for sure. I find that after running and quitting certain programs, like Internet Explorer, I have less memory available than when I launched the app (black hole?). I have no solution for that, since I'm as up to date as I can be on all my software. I've decided that need more physical memory, I guess. But I can still work on some pretty large documents, which you can't.

Other than checking for the Norton conflict, you can also rebuild your preferences file (quit AI, toss AIprefs file, launch AI) and your C:\Program Files\Adobe\Illustrator 9.0\Required\Fonts\adobefnt.lst file (same method).

Here's a final tip.  Clear out the fonts in your fonts folder.  Try starting with a basic set of less than 50 fonts (count these by files in the Fonts folder, not by names in the menu).  It does help.

I hope for you that it's the common Norton Conflict.

Good Luck
Amy