Expert: Amy - 3/2/2007

Question
I'm using AI CS on a PC. When I save to web it will too often corrupt the file so that when I attempt to open it later with AI, Photoshop or even to just locate it using Explorer, just opening the folder where the file/jpg is causes the program to either lock up or simply close.
Sometimes I can use the "explore" option in Windows Explorer to delete the file. Another thing when it corrupts instead of having the tiny jpg/photoshop icon, it will have a square "text" type of icon next to the file name.

This is a new computer (two months old) I've had problems with AI and PS almost from the beginning. Someone suggested was the memory (had added additional 512 chip when bought the computer). Removed the additional chip, and many of the problems quit. I'm only using 512 (but that was more than enough on my old computer), but now I'm wondering if it could be the original memory chip that is bad.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Answer
Hi Cheryl,

I had a similar thing that used to happen with Illustrator and it was because of certain file types being associated with PhotoShop during its installation. Seemed like the icons were blowing up my system.

I had to Uninstall PhotoShop then Reinstall PhotoShop and when the installer asks what files are to be associated with PhotoShop, do not select TIFF, BMP, JPG and PNG or GIF.

It is not enough to just change the file associations. You need to uninstall Photoshop and then reinstall it to correct the problem.

You may need to do the same thing with Illustrator but I don't remember AI's installer prompting for File Associations.

The exact cause? I seem to remember it had to do with
Window's inability to build the icons and happened when opening:

Folders containing a large number of image files.
Folders with long names.
Folders containing JPGs and PSD files together.

So you could also try creating a new folder with a short sweet name and placing a single problematic jpeg into the new folder and see if that helps???

-Amy