Dreamweaver 8 Won't Open

Dreamweaver 8 is a web-authoring application developed by Adobe that utilizes the WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) environment for easy design and development of websites. After purchasing and installing Dreamweaver 8, some users have reported problems with launching the program. Dreamweaver may freeze on the splash screen or won't open at all. Adobe recognizes the problems with Dreamweaver 8 and has released an updater for Windows and Mac computers that fixes this problem and other problems with that version of the program. There are other things you can do to fix this problem.

Instructions

For Windows

1. Download the Dreamweaver 8.0.1 or 8.0.2 updater. Double-click on the downloaded program to install it on your computer. Restart Dreamweaver when you are done. If this doesn't fix the problem, continue on to try other steps.

2. Right-click on the "Start" button and then "Explore" to open the Windows Explorer. Navigate to the "C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data\Macromedia\Dreamweaver 8\Configuration" folder. Rename the "Configuration" folder to "Configuration1." Start Dreamweaver 8 again. This will force the program to generate another "Configuration" folder.

3. Click on "Start" and then "Run." If you have Windows Vista/7, just click on "Start" and type in the "Search files and programs" box. Type in "regedit." Navigate to the "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Macromedia\Common\8\Sites" folder. Rename the "Sites" key file to "SitesOLD." Close the Registry and open Dreamweaver 8. This will force the program to automatically recreate the site definitions in the registry.

For Mac

1. Download and install the Dreamweaver 8.0.1 or 8.0.2 Updater. Double-click on the file to install it. Restart Dreamweaver 8 to see if the updater effectively fix the problem.

2. Move the user configuration folder to the desktop so Dreamweaver will recreate it. The user configuration folder is located in the "Mac HD/Users/<username>/Library/Application Support/Macromedia/Dreamweaver 8" folder. Open Dreamweaver 8 to see if it will successfully load this time.

3. Move the Dreamweaver 8 "Pref" file to the desktop so that Dreamweaver will automatically recreate it. The "Pref" folder is located in the "Mac HD/Users/<username>/Library/Preferences" folder. It is named "Dreamweaver 8 Prefs." Restart Dreamweaver 8 to see if it will load. The program will create another "Dreamweaver 8 Prefs" file. If this fixed the problem, you can delete the old corrupted one from the desktop.

References

• Adobe TechNote: Dreamweaver 8 Does Not Launch