June 5 2008 • 9:07 PM

Windows XP Service Pack 3 Breaks InDesign CS2 Pagemaker Conversion Capability

Not to be outdone by the folks in Cupertino and the problems with Leopard, it looks like our friends in Redmond may have broken a feature in InDesign CS2 with the release of Windows XP Service Pack 3, the capability to open Pagemaker files.

After reading a few reports of problems in the User to User forums, I turned on my XP SP3 laptop and tried opening a few Pagemaker documents with CS2. I was greeted with the same error message over and over again:

The Pagemaker document is damaged and cannot be recovered.

There was no problem opening the same file with CS3 under XP or Vista.

This was always a problem with CS2 under Vista and apparently some of the code made its way into Windows XP with the most recent service pack. Obviously, this isn’t a major issue (or a minor one for that matter) for most users, but for anyone still on CS2 that has a need to convert Pagemaker files, SP3 is going to be a dealbreaker.

If you’ve already installed the service pack and must remain on CS2 you’ll need to roll back to SP2.

7 Responses discussing this post. Add yours below.

  1. Eugene Tyson
    June 6th, 2008 • 8:02 amLink

    Eh, that doesn’t seem good, does that mean a patch from Windows or a patch from Adobe for this one?

  2. June 6th, 2008 • 12:56 pmLink

    Unfortunately, this one isn’t going to be on anyone’s radar. I posted it here as a warning not to install SP3 if you’re still using CS2 and need to open PM files.

    On that note, I have no idea about earlier versions of ID but CS3 does work.

  3. June 9th, 2008 • 6:24 pmLink

    anyway, is good to know…

    very nice information.

  4. Carsten
    June 10th, 2008 • 11:06 amLink

    Ah, thats what it was. I tried for ages to open one of our old documents. Now we got to keep at least one machine on SP2

  5. July 17th, 2008 • 1:27 pmLink

    Looks like earlier versions are affected, too. A post today on the U2U forum from a CS user confirms it.

  6. Leinan
    August 27th, 2008 • 12:46 amLink

    Hi all and Bob this seems may sound true but it’s not actually like that. :) If you are using IDCS2 v4 you should d/l the update v4.05 for that version and you will be able to open any PM7 files or lower. There is non related to SP3 update pack of Windows XP for that particular problem. Just another info.

    Btw you may not believe me but if my memory is right i post this problem in Adobe InDesign forum. And also relay how i solve it. :)

    You may try using IDCS2 v4.0 in clean WinXp SP2 and try opening PM7 files the same error will occur and try also using IDCS2 v4.05 in clean SP2 & SP3 respectively you will see that by using the update version for IDCS2 will solve the problem.

    Regards,
    Leinan

  7. Leinan
    August 27th, 2008 • 12:59 amLink

    Hi again some M S SMith post this link to Adobe InDesign Forum and am trying to find my post there not with another post but can’t seem to find it now. Bob is there.

    Regards,
    Leinan

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