Thanks for the Curt. Holding Ctrl down does not do anything when starting photoshop on my machine. I tried resetting bridge just in case - no difference.

Although I did not document it in my first post, I did delete the preferences file which resets the preferences in photoshop apparently. This did not .

Also, in msconfig, I have turned off all startup items and system services, to no avail. Photoshop still freezes when I try Edit > Preferences > Performance.

I am going to test my memory next.

Also, I would like to see if the nvidia drivers are causing the problem, but I do not know how to turn them off and use a generic video driver. If anyone can of this please advise.

Rory