TechNote (Archived)

How to recover missing panels

Issue

After launching FreeHand, one or more of the panels are missing. This is even after confirming that there is a check mark to the left of the panel's name in the window menu.

Reason

Here are the common causes of missing panels, all of which can be resolved in the same manner.

Common causes for missing panels:

	Damaged preference file
	Changed resolution of video display
	Panels have been moved off the edge of the screen

Solution

Below are the steps to reset the panels for each of the versions of FreeHand.

FreeHand MX and 10.0.1:

1	Quit FreeHand. Note:If FreeHand is still running these steps will not resolve the problem.
2	Navigate to the following folder using Windows Explorer: C:\ Documents and Settings\ [username] \ Application Data \ Macromedia \ FreeHand MX \ [version number] \ English \ Settings \ FHprefs.txt.
3	Locate and delete the Fhprefs.txt.
4	Relaunch FreeHand, confirm all is well.

FreeHand 9 and 10:

1	Quit FreeHand. Note:If FreeHand is still running these steps will not resolve the problem.
2	Navigate to the FreeHand folder using Windows Explorer. The default location is Program Files \ Macromedia FreeHand [version number] \ English.
3	Locate and delete the Fhprefs.txt.
4	Relaunch FreeHand, confirm all is well.

FreeHand 8 and earlier:

1	Quit FreeHand. Note:If FreeHand is still running, these steps will not resolve the problem.
2	Navigate to the FreeHand folder using Windows Explorer. The default location is Program Files \ Macromedia FreeHand [version number].
3	Locate and delete the Fhprefs.txt.
4	Relaunch FreeHand, confirm all is well.