Hello,
I just bought the AI CS3. It installed OK on my friend's laptop (windows). However, when I clicked the big button in the installation:
"Install Adobe Illustrator CS3"

A window showed:
Initializing Adobe Illustrator...

Then I got a message:
"Setup has encountered an error and cannot continue. Contact Adobe customer Support for assistance. Fatal error during installation".

I've tried several times. My computer meets all the requirements (it's a really new and faster PC). And there's no old versions of AI on it yet.

Can anyone help? Thanks!!!

Your best bet:

In the US - Adobe General support 800-833-6687

In the US - Adobe Install Problems 800-642-3623

You wouldn't by any chance have Google Desktop installed?

Do you have any other Adobe products on your computer? When I installed CS3 on my Mac, I kept getting failures. After contacting Adobe, they told me I had to delete ALL other Adobe products -- including Flash and Adobe Reader. Plus, I had to do searches and delete any support files associated with them. It took hours!

Thanks a lot, everyone!

In fact, the computer guy in our company just found out that my system has been damaged by the software "eMule" (this damage is barely detectible). I reformated my computer and now I can install the AI CS3!