Category Archives: Windows 7

Installing Adobe Creative Suite CS3 on 64-Bit editions of Microsoft Windows has always been a bit of a hassle, since 64-Bit computing really wasn’t common in the MS Windows world when the software suite was originally released.

When you attempt to install any edition of Adobe Creative Suite CS3 on 64 bit Windows Vista or Windows 7 you’ll be prompted for a missing AdobePDF.dll file. Adobe themselves recommend using some form of cab extraction before you begin installation, obtaining the file you will need to complete the installation. Others hunt high and low for a copy of the file posted on random websites, but that’s always a giant security risk. Thankfully there is a much easier (and safer) way than using Google search for the missing DLL, or following the published method in the Adobe knowledge base.

The Simple Solution:

Install Adobe Creative Suite CS3 from your DVD media as normal, running through the usual install steps and answering questions about the type of install you want to do on your machine.

As the installation approaches the conclusion, you will be prompted to provide a missing AdobePDF.dll file. In that dialog box click browse, move back one directory, and then enter the AMD directory. From within that AMD directory, select the “AdobePDF.dll” file and then continue the installation.

Your installation should now complete correctly. Job done!

Sometimes ownership permissions get screwed up on directories and files in Microsoft Windows, denying you and your applications access to multiple files and sub folders.

This recently happened to my Music folder. The Zune software didn’t have permission to read any of my music, leaving me stuck playing 30 second clips from the Zune store. I didn’t really feel motivated to manually go in and fix permissions for all the artist folders in my Music directory. Luckily I stumbled across a useful registry hack that fixed all my woes with a simple right click.

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The option to format internal and external hard drives to the FAT 32 filesystem is not available to you from within the Graphical User Interface in Windows Vista/Windows 7 64 Bit Editions. If you wish to make data available to operating systems or applications that cannot properly read or write to NTFS partitions, this can pose something of a problem for you. Thankfully there is a relatively easy command prompt solution you can use to solve this little problem.

To perform this format successfully, you need to launch Command Prompt with Administrator permissions before executing the command.

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