I've been using Vista and have a relatively new computer (less than 6 months old) and my system has become very unstable. It crashes left and right and gives me this error: "logon process has failed to create the security options dialog", then it says "Failure - security options". I've spent hours trying to fix this and I am concerned it might be corrupting some of my TIFF and PSD files. Today, I even re-installed photoshop. (See previous post in December) I've trolled the forums regarding this error and I am not alone, and there are plenty of theories and suggestions to fix this problem. I'll try some of those tomorrow assuming I can get computer to even boot up (on another computer right now). Most believe it to be tied into the operating system. I have a friend who is tech saavy and he suggested I upgrade to Windows 7. However, after reading the reviews on Amazon - it doesn't sound like that would be an improvement at all. I also heard about the free operating system Ubuntu, but after doing some quick research it doesn't look like it is compatible with CS4. Does anyone have any suggestions? I've been wasting a considerable amount of time with this problem and it is getting increasingly frustrating. I don't really use the computer for anything else except editing photographs. Thanks so much. God Bless - Michael
First off--people who write reviews are those who (typically) have problems. What you don't see are the thousands of installs that worked perfectly. Win 7, by most accounts, is a vast improvement over Vista.
Run a full Malicious Software and Virus scan. The free MalWareBytes is excellent for fixing malware infections. Use your up to date virus scanner to scan for viruses.
Just a guess, but your issue sounds like a corrupted user account. Create a new Computer Adinistrator account and see if that helps. Delete any other accounts except for 'Guest' which cannot be removed.
Don't uninstall/reinstall software willy-nilly, as this will likely not fix the problem, and may cause further problems.
If you decide to go to Win 7...
Back up all user data--including any downloaded software installer packages, drivers, custom printer profiles, etc.
Reformat your drive and do a clean install of Win 7. (DO NOT be tempted to run the upgrade from Vista to Win 7. This has caused problems for some users)
Reinstall your drivers (or download new ones) and software, and copy your data back to your primary drive.
Yes, this is a PITA, but better than chasing rabbits, or trying to herd cats, which it sounds like you are doing.
Keep us posted, Michael.
--P
Posted by conrad Rowe on February 2, 2010 at 1:01 PM
I use to be in the same boat you are in. Always having problems running Photoshop CS4 or even some other applications. I got tired of it and switched to a Mac and have not looked back. Life is so Great with a computer that works without all the problems I had with a windows machine. You will not regret it. Conrad Rowe
Posted by John W. Wall on February 2, 2010 at 4:39 PM
If your computer is only six months old, you might want to have your problem checked out by a pro. My Dell service guy -- someone in India -- did some amazing work helping me get stuff sorted out when I bought the new computer. They can log onto your machine while you're sitting there and really figure things out. That service plans lasts one year, I believe. And by the way, I run CS4 on Vista with no problems.
Posted by David Bostedo on February 2, 2010 at 5:14 PM
I run CS4 on Vista with no problems.
So do I. While Macs are great, and certainly have made lots of folks happy, there's no reason that a fairly new PC won't work wonderfully (assuming it was built and loaded properly)
May I ask what type of machine and what was installed when you got it? Do you have problems with other software? Have you tried what Preston suggested?
I have nothing against Mac, either, Conrad. However, Michael has a nearly new PC that has a problem that can most likely be fixed. I am sure that he would rather fix what he has rather than spend even more money on a completely new machine with a different platform.
I am in full agreement with John. If your machine and OS is that new and is (hopefully) still under warranty, contacting your vendor for support would be a logical step before things get worse.
I agree with David's questions for you. We would like to hear back from you, Michael.
As bad as it has gotten - I have considered getting a whole new system. Right now, I don't want to deal with that though. Hopefully this will answer some of your questions/suggestions:
1) The hardware was purchased from NewEgg.com in May and was sent to a friend who assembled the PC for me. So he and another one of my buddies are basically my tech support. They are very PC saavy, but have no experience with Photoshop or other image editing programs.
2) When I started having these problems at the end of December I took it to my friends and he ran a complete system check, reinstalling drivers as well as Windows Vista. The whole process took over 8 hours as my hard drive had a bunch of bad clusters on it. (It was so bad at the point I couldn't even get it to boot up in safe mode) The system worked fairly well this month and within the last 36 hours it has deteriorated into a state almost completely as bad as it was before.
I think some of my better PSD and TIFF files may have gotten corrupted because some files work fine while others only work intermittently and have begun to freeze up the system again.
I am pretty sure Vista is at least part of the problem, but I am also thinking it could be my hard drive as well. (Western Digital).
What's troubling is that some of folders full of my images take a long time to populate and some of the thumbnails don't even register at all. These are the ones I think might be corrupted. Anyways, that's basically where I am at now. I am going to take it back over to my friend's and have him do a complete re-install with Windows 7 Ultimate I believe. I am also thinking about a clean boot. I hope this helps explain my predicament better. Thanks for your time and suggestions.
If, as you say, the drive had bad sectors (which will corrupt data clusters therein), do yourself a big favor and replace that drive with a new one! Get a high quality drive, not some 'consumer level' p.o.s. Also, imho, stay away from the big terabyte drives as these seem to be failing with some frequency.
Actually, if you can afford it, get two drives. Put your OS and programs on one of them and your data on the other.
Once that's done, do a clean install of Win 7 and all your stuff.
I hate to say it, but reinstalling Vista (or any OS) on a drive with bad sectors is like calling in artillery on yourself.
The corrupted files may be a done deal. Hopefully you have backups of the original camera files that you can reprocess.
Let us know how things go.
--P
Posted by Dan Baumbach on February 3, 2010 at 7:19 AM
I run Vista on a relatively new Dell and with the exception of PS 4, I have absolutely no problems. Vista is a bit of a memory hog because of it's pretty alpha windows, but I find it to be very stable.
I used to run Photoshop CS and it worked quite well, but it's relatively easy to get PS CS4 to lock up and be forced to shut down. It seems to create a lot of memory corruption. About half of the time when I try to print something, it will send garbage to the printer and I'll waste ink and paper. If, without rebooting, I take the same PSD file and load it into Photoshop CS, it prints perfectly.
However, I have to reboot windows to get the file to print properly in CS 4. I'm running a dual core processor with 4gbs of RAM so I know that hardware is not the problem. I've learned to examine the size of the file in the print spooler and it it's too small then I know it won't print properly
I think CS 4 is buggy as hell. And this assessment comes from a professional Windows programmer.
"I think CS 4 is buggy as hell. And this assessment comes from a professional Windows programmer. "
Makes me glad I stuck with CS2, Dan. I considered upgrading to CS4, but now I may upgrade to CS5 when it is released and any bug fixes are incorporated in it.
"Preston, you mustn't forget that CS5 will have its own share of bugs. "
True enough, Anil. Hopefully, Adobe will not fall prey to "Those who fail to heed the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them!"
--P
Posted by David Bostedo on February 4, 2010 at 5:21 PM
I've been running CS4 for about 6 months now, having upgraded from Elements. I have to say that I haven't had a single issue with CS4, running it on two different machines - one an old XP machine, and one a newer Vista machine. I'm not a really heavy daily user, but I do use quite a few of its features.
I guess my point is that I may just be lucky, or Dan may just be unlucky - but it's more likely that it's a little of both.
You know, David; with all the thousands of files, dependencies and interoperability that goes on between hardware, the OS, and applications, it's a miracle the darned things work as well as they do.
I've got my computer back with Windows 7 installed. We ran a bunch of S.M.A.R.T. tests on the hard drive and everything seems fine. I've turned off all my thumbnails, which was contributing to the problem. We also partioned off my C drive. I am keeping my fingers crossed. I hope this works.
Posted by David Bostedo on February 6, 2010 at 1:27 AM
We also partioned off my C drive.
What do you mean by this Michael? Did you take a large drive and partition it into a C and D drive? That really shouldn't make any difference for any of the issues you seemed to be having. (You also shouldn't have any issue with thumbnails, except perhaps initially as it builds them; But that's a smaller issue.)
My buddy did it for me. That is what he did. Apparently, the thumbnails use a lot of RAM, my computer is still acting funny though right now it is running better. We'll see in another month.
Posted by David Bostedo on February 12, 2010 at 9:20 AM
Generating all the thumbnails in Bridge can take a while, and bog things down for sure if you've got lots of images. But once it's done it doesn't have to be done again, so I'd definitely give it time to get past that before making any judgements.
Discussion
17 repliesI've been using Vista and have a relatively new computer (less than 6 months old) and my system has become very unstable. It crashes left and right and gives me this error: "logon process has failed to create the security options dialog", then it says "Failure - security options". I've spent hours trying to fix this and I am concerned it might be corrupting some of my TIFF and PSD files. Today, I even re-installed photoshop. (See previous post in December) I've trolled the forums regarding this error and I am not alone, and there are plenty of theories and suggestions to fix this problem. I'll try some of those tomorrow assuming I can get computer to even boot up (on another computer right now). Most believe it to be tied into the operating system. I have a friend who is tech saavy and he suggested I upgrade to Windows 7. However, after reading the reviews on Amazon - it doesn't sound like that would be an improvement at all. I also heard about the free operating system Ubuntu, but after doing some quick research it doesn't look like it is compatible with CS4. Does anyone have any suggestions? I've been wasting a considerable amount of time with this problem and it is getting increasingly frustrating.
Run a full Malicious Software and Virus scan. The free MalWareBytes is excellent for fixing malware infections. Use your up to date virus scanner to scan for viruses.
Just a guess, but your issue sounds like a corrupted user account. Create a new Computer Adinistrator account and see if that helps. Delete any other accounts except for 'Guest' which cannot be removed.
Don't uninstall/reinstall software willy-nilly, as this will likely not fix the problem, and may cause further problems.
If you decide to go to Win 7...
Back up all user data--including any downloaded software installer packages, drivers, custom printer profiles, etc.
Reformat your drive and do a clean install of Win 7. (DO NOT be tempted to run the upgrade from Vista to Win 7. This has caused problems for some users)
Reinstall your drivers (or download new ones) and software, and copy your data back to your primary drive.
Yes, this is a PITA, but better than chasing rabbits, or trying to herd cats, which it sounds like you are doing.
Keep us posted, Michael.
--P
So do I. While Macs are great, and certainly have made lots of folks happy, there's no reason that a fairly new PC won't work wonderfully (assuming it was built and loaded properly)
May I ask what type of machine and what was installed when you got it? Do you have problems with other software? Have you tried what Preston suggested?
I am in full agreement with John. If your machine and OS is that new and is (hopefully) still under warranty, contacting your vendor for support would be a logical step before things get worse.
I agree with David's questions for you. We would like to hear back from you, Michael.
--P
As bad as it has gotten - I have considered getting a whole new system. Right now, I don't want to deal with that though. Hopefully this will answer some of your questions/suggestions:
1) The hardware was purchased from NewEgg.com in May and was sent to a friend who assembled the PC for me. So he and another one of my buddies are basically my tech support. They are very PC saavy, but have no experience with Photoshop or other image editing programs.
2) When I started having these problems at the end of December I took it to my friends and he ran a complete system check, reinstalling drivers as well as Windows Vista. The whole process took over 8 hours as my hard drive had a bunch of bad clusters on it. (It was so bad at the point I couldn't even get it to boot up in safe mode) The system worked fairly well this month and within the last 36 hours it has deteriorated into a state almost completely as bad as it was before.
I think some of my better PSD and TIFF files may have gotten corrupted because some files work fine while others only work intermittently and have begun to freeze up the system again.
I am pretty sure Vista is at least part of the problem, but I am also thinking it could be my hard drive as well. (Western Digital).
What's troubling is that some of folders full of my images take a long time to populate and some of the thumbnails don't even register at all. These are the ones I think might be corrupted. Anyways, that's basically where I am at now. I am going to take it back over to my friend's and have him do a complete re-install with Windows 7 Ultimate I believe. I am also thinking about a clean boot. I hope this helps explain my predicament better. Thanks for your time and suggestions.
Michael
If, as you say, the drive had bad sectors (which will corrupt data clusters therein), do yourself a big favor and replace that drive with a new one! Get a high quality drive, not some 'consumer level' p.o.s. Also, imho, stay away from the big terabyte drives as these seem to be failing with some frequency.
Actually, if you can afford it, get two drives. Put your OS and programs on one of them and your data on the other.
Once that's done, do a clean install of Win 7 and all your stuff.
I hate to say it, but reinstalling Vista (or any OS) on a drive with bad sectors is like calling in artillery on yourself.
The corrupted files may be a done deal. Hopefully you have backups of the original camera files that you can reprocess.
Let us know how things go.
--P
I used to run Photoshop CS and it worked quite well, but it's relatively easy to get PS CS4 to lock up and be forced to shut down. It seems to create a lot of memory corruption. About half of the time when I try to print something, it will send garbage to the printer and I'll waste ink and paper. If, without rebooting, I take the same PSD file and load it into Photoshop CS, it prints perfectly.
However, I have to reboot windows to get the file to print properly in CS 4. I'm running a dual core processor with 4gbs of RAM so I know that hardware is not the problem. I've learned to examine the size of the file in the print spooler and it it's too small then I know it won't print properly
I think CS 4 is buggy as hell. And this assessment comes from a professional Windows programmer.
- Dan
Makes me glad I stuck with CS2, Dan. I considered upgrading to CS4, but now I may upgrade to CS5 when it is released and any bug fixes are incorporated in it.
--P
True enough, Anil. Hopefully, Adobe will not fall prey to "Those who fail to heed the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them!"
--P
I guess my point is that I may just be lucky, or Dan may just be unlucky - but it's more likely that it's a little of both.
--P
I've got my computer back with Windows 7 installed. We ran a bunch of S.M.A.R.T. tests on the hard drive and everything seems fine. I've turned off all my thumbnails, which was contributing to the problem. We also partioned off my C drive. I am keeping my fingers crossed. I hope this works.
What do you mean by this Michael? Did you take a large drive and partition it into a C and D drive? That really shouldn't make any difference for any of the issues you seemed to be having. (You also shouldn't have any issue with thumbnails, except perhaps initially as it builds them; But that's a smaller issue.)
My buddy did it for me. That is what he did. Apparently, the thumbnails use a lot of RAM, my computer is still acting funny though right now it is running better. We'll see in another month.