[Tom Womack]

I had same error – After Effects CS4 – locked up –
I found several posts for this error message

‘error parsing properties list’

The issue for me was the difference in Adobe data location in Vista and XP. The ‘cure’ appears to be the same for both and that is removal/recreation of the AfterFX#.ini where # is the release level of After Effects, in my case, AfterFX9.ini, yours AfterFX7.ini

on XP the Adobe data should be in Document and Settings/Local Settings/Appliction Data/Adobe

AppData moved on Vista

on Vista ( not yet documented at Adobe site), this file and data can be found at

users/USERNAME/AppData/Roaming/Adobe/AfterEffects/9.0 where 9.0 is release level and USERNAME is username of pc user account.

I was told to delete entire After Effects directory here, I also see forum posts where deleting the .ini file is all that is necessary.

I deleted folder, accessed AE CS4 immediately.

Hope this helps,

dogcreek