Adobe Illustrator - CS4 - Application Hangs

Well here's my line of thinking,
Have you upgraded from XP pro x32 to windows 7 pro x 64?
Was it a clean install?or an upgrade?

And then took your Adobe cs4 from XP and installed into the programfiles x 86 on windows 7
This may make sense then>
The program Illustrator.exe version 14.0.128.0 stopped interacting with Windows and was closed
This date in your XML Events> is really a long time ago but does that give a key as to where your Adobe CS4 came from?
Event Xml:
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">

Based on those little keys and what you said here>The CS4 version that installs Illustrator (14.0.128.0) is a 32-bit installation. It's been my experience that 32 bit installs work better in Windows 7 64-bit.<<
Is this the case ? Please let me know.
Take a look through this
Windows 7 with CS4, CS3
Extract
Upgrading from previous versions of Windows to Windows 7
Many previous versions of Windows require a clean installation of Windows 7 instead of an upgrade.
If you need to do a clean installation of Windows 7, you'll need to copy all your personal files to an external drive before you install Windows 7, and reinstall all your Adobe applications afterward.
If you do need to reinstall your Adobe applications, you may be required to activate them. This won't count as an additional activation as long as you installed the software on the same hardware as before.
Use the below matrix to determine if you need to perform a clean Windows 7 install, and to reinstall your Adobe applications. If you have questions about the matrix, or the Windows 7 installation, please contact Microsoft.
 the Matrix  below states upgrading XP to windows 7 is not supported.
Where X is the key>X = in-place Upgrade is not supported. Clean install of Windows 7 is required
source>>
http://helpx.adobe.com/creative-suite/kb/windows-7-cs4-cs3.html

We had a lot of issues and still do with illustrator. Adobe has only just made it 64 bit with cs5 and up but the program's still struggled with complex artwork. We had many a standoff with our designers because they couldn't just use the program intuitively but rather had to conform to how adobe wants you to do a clipping mask etc.
we also found using more than about 5 spot colours had issues (and cost prohibitive when it comes to printing) but the program allows you to do it...
Illustrator is also designed to use sprites, which are reusable objects. So instead of copying using alt and drag it would be more beneficial to create an object, add it to your library and add it from there. What this means is the object itself is only stored once in the file not how many times you copy it.
There are lots of other things that escape me right now but if you are wanting to use illustrator effective Ely  then you almost need to relearn it adobes way

Merete - The computer was formatted and Windows 7 Pro SP1 64-bit was installed.  Adobe CS4 was installed from CD as well.  So I don't think these fixes for an OS upgrade will work.

Tagit - to be hones i'm IT support and not a user.  but I will pass your information on to my user.  it could be very valuable. thank you for sharing your experience.  It is very much appreciated.  

I'm going to leave this open just in case someone else has seen this and has a break/fix for it.

One thing I forgot to add is that we had 6 highly spec'd pcs, the dell precision family.  each one about $4000 so not to be sneezed at.  however we did notice that the video card in the latest one was far more superior than that of the other 5 (due to prices reductions for high end video cards that made it prohibitive before this).  This one pc never seemed to crash though it did still struggle with some of the artwork that was crashing the other pcs.
What is the video card in the machine?  We did get better results replacing the video cards but I believe it was only a band-aid and looking at the way the artwork is created and how adobe expect you to do it would be my best advice.

ATI Radeon HD 3450

Well that's a serious video card. 64GB ram etc etc
If you're running the latest drivers for it then it would rule it out and your focus would be on the construction of the art work

Adobe Illustrator is Proprietary software
Proprietary software or closed source software is computer software licensed under exclusive legal right of the copyright holder with the intent that the licensee is given the right to use the software only under certain conditions, and restricted from other uses, such as modification, sharing, studying, redistribution, or reverse engineering.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Illustrator
It may not run correctly since it was registered to windows xp 32 bit.
Is it registered correctly?
Adobe may see this install as a second computer since the OS has changed.
Has the user tried logging in his to Adobe account then downloaded a new setup?
Here is a similar
https://www.experts-exchange.com/questions/28034292/Adobe-Design-Premium-5-Install.html?anchorAnswerId=38897963#a38897963

This is great information Merete. If you were going to upgrade to CS6, would you just format the computer and start fresh with CS6?  That sounds easier and cleaner.

No I wouldn't that's too serious a step.
As it is your installing Adobe Illustrator /Adobe premier? on a new windows 7 x 64 system right?
If you want to do that it is the simplest way back since it's a new windows install anyway
But formatting re/installing wouldn't make much difference at this point would it?
I wish I could offer a direct solution unfortunately  it's a process of elimination.
Have you activated it?
It could be so many things?
Any windows events errors we can look at>
Is this when you open Adobe?
Is it from the start menue?
Since you used a setup disc that disc would have a binary key ie OEM
as I see it that setup was registered to XP x 32 and now you have installed the same disc on this windows 7 x 64.
That must constitute a new install or a second computer.
You'd need to deactivate it
Have you met all the requirements other than hardware?
Maybe it requires updates?
Click on Crash Details and look through the error file.
What else can you provide about the errors?
One solution was to
To fix it i let adobe updater run and when it finished, i ran premiere pro and no problem at all.
Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 has unexpectedly quit
http://forums.adobe.com/thread/458784
http://www.streetmusician.co.uk/adobequit/

How can I deactivate my Adobe software?
You may receive an activation error if your computer has changed recently.
You can't solve this problem on your own, if you've done one of the following:
 Made changes to your computer due to a crash
Upgraded your computer hardware
Replaced a hard drive
Upgraded the Operating System
Gotten a new computer and old computer is unavailable
http://forums.adobe.com/thread/926830

Hope it helps

Merete - with my imaging sofware I can have the users computer rebuilt in 2 hours.  What you are talking about is a lot more than two hours - for me at least.  But thanks for all of this great info.

I should have just done this from the start.  It's hard to keep the break even line in site.  Its a gray line but when you cross it your company loses money. I have nearly 8 hours into this issue and I could have had the PC rebuilt in just over two.