If anybody has more to add that'll be great, but thanks everybody for all the feedback so far!!!

Apparently, Dimension3D rules.

I will definitely have to check it out.

Thanks, Jeni.

Thanks all! Greatly appreciated!!

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. My OS is Vista 64-bit, which may be a factor ...

You're delightfully welcome!

Yeah. It was an act.

Yeah. It solves your problem. No acknowledgment necessary. Glad I could help.

Go to Edit > Preferences > Interface, uncheck "Enable Floating Document Window Docking," and then exit and reload Photoshop.

(Note: even with the above preference unchecked, you can still dock the windows as tabs, but you will now have to hold down the Control key to do it.)

Does this solve your problem?

Yes. A screen shot. There is a "snap to document bounds" setting somewhere, but somehow I doubt if that is what you are talking about. A screen capture might help as I still haven't figured out what the problem may be.

As for crashes, Adobe probably hasn't helped (and probably won't) with that problem because this is most likely a hardware problem (and that is probably what their support is assuming). They don't guarantee their software will be compatible with all hardware. No software developer can. And they certainly cannot help all their customers troubleshoot all the hardware that's out there. That's why they publish (again, somewhere) lists of hardware and operating systems they consider compatible. If you can find the information (I know it's out there somewhere on Adobe.com because I've seen it), you should be able to determine whether your hardware and OS are considered (by Adobe) to be fully compatible.

If they are supposed to be fully compatible, a couple of things you could try -- though it could all be a waste of time and effort, but you never know until you try -- is to uninstall your video card drivers and reinstall them, or, if that doesn't work and if you are willing, fdisk and format the system (and program) drive(s) and reinstall everything from scratch.

Sometimes that last approach solves a world of troubles. Sometimes it solves nothing. Either way, as I'm sure you know, it's a commitment in terms of time and trouble, and you need to be sure you have reliable backups and get a professional to do it if you are in any way unsure of yourself. I've done it many times over the years and have almost screwed myself over a time or two in spite of that experience.

On the other hand if your hardware and/or OS is/are not fully compatible, you obviously need to start over and install a different OS if that is the trouble, or if it's the hardware, then you will need to try to find a local hardware guru who can swap out parts (I'm just guessing, but most likely swapping out the video card and its drivers will do the trick) until the crashes go away.

Just don't expect Adobe, or any other software vendor -- ever -- to resolve a hardware problem for you if that's what it is. If any software support rep has ever done that for you, they did it because they were especially nice and wanted to be helpful, not because they were obligated to.

And good luck.

Quote - I find that PhotoShop will fix the image to the top of the screen

I don't have an answer for you, but I'll try to look into it sometime today and see if I can understand the problem you're having, etc.

Quote - As for "giving Adobe a chance" how much of a 'chance' do they need?

Sorry. I did not read your post carefully enough. I didn't realize it had been so long. Having been at times a developer and at other times the guy on the phone trying to get some help, I kind of see things from both sides. Companies are only people and people make mistakes, especially very busy people, and CS4 is still a relatively new release, and they may still be kinda busy ironing everything out, or they may simply be overwhelmed with support issues. Further, some people's demands for support are pretty unreasonable, i.e., those who are unwilling to crack a manual or look at the help, for example.

On the other hand, if they are willing to take your money, they should give you decent support.

Have you tried to stay in touch with them? Or have you simply waited and assumed they would get back to you? My old man taught me to squeak, i.e., the squeaky wheel gets the grease. If you find you can't get the help you need, here or somewhere else, then try pestering them a bit. Keep sending them an email every day or so for a while. Or better, call them every day or two on the phone. It's a bit of trouble, but with a little patience, it sometimes works.

Another suggestion, if you have time enough, is to search the internet for and view some video tutorials. Some are free, and if you can spare a few bucks for a couple of months or so, the for pay site lynda.com can be a worthwhile investment, and the monthly subscription cost is fairly reasonable. Later.

Okay.

Sorry to hear about your troubles. I'm using a video card with a chipset for which the OpenGL support has a reputation of being often somewhat inferior to the card you seem to be using, but I've seen no crashes and pretty much stellar performance so far.

I guess you never know ...

Give Adobe a chance. But if they don't come through on support or are too slow, you might try asking around to see if someone can loan you a different high quality video card just to see if yours may be the main cause of the problems you're seeing.

As for my "spring-loaded" comment, tools can be temporarily switched to by pressing and holding the shortcut tool, i.e., you can be, say, zoomed up in the image and in the middle of some brush work and can press and hold the 'H' key and click on the image with the hand tool (keeping the left button down) and it will zoom out to a bird's eye view of the image, and you can then select a different portion of the image and then release the 'H' key and continue with your brush work, i.e., whatever tool you were in the middle of using will again be active, whether it is the dodge tool, burn tool, clone stamp, etc..

You can do it with the rotate tool, too, i.e., while in the middle of another task, you can press and hold the 'R' key, rotate the image on the fly, and then release the 'R' key and proceed with whatever task you were in the middle of. It's very cool, and should prove to be a productivity enhancer for those willing to learn these shortcut keys. My only complaint with it is you can't do it with the any of the selection tools active, i.e., it would be nice to be able to rotate the image in the MIDDLE of making a selection. Still, one should be able to get similar results simply by doing a partial selection and then rotating and then adding to the previous selection. Still, the other way would be very much cooler.

You should be able to operate similarly with some of the other tools, like the move tool, the eyedropper tool, etc., but I haven't experimented with much besides 'H' and 'R' yet.

Oh yeah. The new "spring-loaded" commands feature is cool.

Oh. Wait. I just re-read the thread. You already have CS4. Why are you asking?

Quote - That should be enough... shouldn't it?

I'm not too familiar with the particular version of your OS, but it sounds quite adequate to me.

Why not go to adobe.com and download the trial and try an install and see?

But prior to installing PS, I would suggest you make sure you have the very latest drivers for your video card installed. I understand older drivers can cause problems with the OpenGL functions, which seem (so far) to be some of the cooler features, IMHO.

Quote - I have never owned a mac, and have no intention of ever getting one.

Ah, now, one should always try to keep a flexible attitude. One never knows when it might come in handy.   ;)

Quote - What sort of OS and system would you say you would need to support it?

Well ... PC or Mac?

I'm certainly no expert, but ...

... I downloaded the trial today and installed it, and it works pretty fine on my 5-year-old dual Opteron system. I have 4G RAM and 64-bit Vista installed and a relatively new, fairly top-notch video card (supposedly one of the best available for the old AGP standard which is all my system board supports).

But I wouldn't exactly recommend my system for anyone who wants to be very productive. Oh wait. Yeah, I would. Wanna buy a system?   ;)

But seriously, best bet would probably be the latest and greatest Mac, or whatever Apple calls them these days. Just about everyone tells me as much. But I'm an old PC hand, so I'm likely to stick with it, and in that case I'm dreaming of an i7 with Windows 7 (when it's clearly out of beta, of course) and about 12G RAM.

Of course I have a couple of dreams beyond Photoshop ...

At the moment, they're just dreams though. I lost about 85% of my net worth in the Dubya years, am semi-disabled, am staring the very real possibility of poverty in the face, and who can say what's still to come? If or when I get to the point where I think I can justify it, it may still take me 3-6 months to psyche myself into letting go of the $$$ ...