Adobe XD is a powerful program that can be used for designing things from apps to websites. However, it does have the occasional hiccup that may prevent you from using it. Today we’ll cover 5 simple fixes to get it to open.

Some of these steps are tedious, but none of them should be overly complicated and usually only take a handful of minutes to complete. There are 5 fixes and step-by-step instructions on how to fix it. If one doesn’t work you can move on to the next one.

1. Sign Out

The easiest way to troubleshoot something is often to simply try ending all the processes and logging back into the program:

1. Sign out of Adobe XD
2. Close Adobe XD
3. Make sure all processes associated with Adobe XD
4. Launch Adobe XD from the desktop app
5. Sign back in

This is by far the most simple way to try and get the program to work. If you can’t sign out because it won’t open completely, skip those steps and just make sure it’s closed completely in the task manager, including anything associated with it.

You will be looking for the Adobe XD process itself and another one called CoreSync. Close those in your task manager, if that doesn’t work, don’t fret. There are a few more ways to troubleshoot the problem.

2. File Permissions

Sometimes programs won’t open because of file permissions on the computer itself. If it worked before, it’s possible something got messed up during an update from Windows or Adobe XD. To check file permissions do the following:

1. Go to “C:\Windows\System32”.
2. Look for “msvcp140.dll” and right-click it to open up the properties.
3. Click on “Security” and then select “Edit”.
4. Select the “Add” option.
5. Enter “All Application Packages”.
6. Select “Check Names”.
7. Choose “Locations” and click on the name of the PC and then hit “OK”.
8. Choose “All Application Packages” once more.
9. Check the box that says “Allow” for read and execute.
10. Select “Apply” and then “Ok” and close it.
11. Follow the steps again for “vcruntime140.dll”.

If you need more information on how to change permissions this link from a University has more steps if the above does not seem to be working for you. This is not the easiest of all the options, but it can sometimes be the reason why Adobe XD does not want to launch properly.

3. Update Windows

Sometimes Windows can be out of date and that can cause issues with programs. If force closing the program didn’t work, this may be the next best option: 

1. Click the magnifying glass on your taskbar at the bottom of your screen.
2. Search for “Updates”.
3. Select “Check for updates” and Windows will check if you need an update.
4. Download and install any updates it says you need.

If a program updates and your Windows is out of date, this can cause a lot of issues with certain programs from time to time. This is especially true if you put them off frequently and haven’t updated them in a while. It’s best to keep Windows up to date as much as possible.

There are some times when new windows updates may seem to break certain programs, so if you haven’t updated but Adobe XD has, it could also just be an issue with an Adobe XD.

4. Update Video Drivers

Your display drivers may be the reason Adobe XD won’t open and these usually don’t auto-update so it’s good to check for new drivers from time to time.

1. Click the magnifying glass on your taskbar.
2. Search for “Device Manager” and open that.
3. Look for “Display Adapters”.
4. Right-click on whatever is listed under this and select “Update Driver”.

This is the best path if you have an integrated graphics card. However, if you have a NVIDIA or AMD card, there are other steps you will have to take.

NVIDIA

This is pretty easy because NVIDIA has the GeForce Experience that comes with all newish cards.

1. Open GeForce Experience.
2. Select “Drivers” in the top left.
3. Select the “Download” button.

If you don’t have the GeForce Experience on your computer, you can search for your drivers on NVIDIA’s website and do a manual install from there. That is simple and you will simply select the download button on the newest driver for your card and it will go through a simple installation process. Navigate to this link to find the page where to install your drivers.

AMD

AMD has an equivalent to the GeForce Experience called AMD Radeon Settings. This program will allow you to easily download new updates and configure your video settings. However, you do not have to do this and you can manually install the drivers as well.

1. This is where you can find AMD’s drivers for installation. It’s a simple process.
2. Click on “Graphics”.
3. Select your series.
4. Select the specific number in the series.
5. Select the video card you have.
6. Hit submit.

It will bring you to a page where you can choose drivers for whatever version of Windows you have and Ubuntu. Once you download the one you have you just open it up and follow the steps it gives you for the installation process.

5. Clean Install

This process is a bit tedious but not complicated and should take only a few minutes to finish:

1. Search for %temp% in the windows search.
2. Delete the temp folder.
3. Search for “Control Panel”.
4. Select “Uninstall a program”.
5. Search for Adobe XD and right-click on it to uninstall.
6. Close all Adobe XD or Creative Cloud processes in the task manager.
7. Navigate to C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe and delete the Adobe XD folder.
8. Uninstall all Microsoft C++ Redistributables in the control panel.
9. Restart your PC
10. Reinstall Adobe XD

This should have worked. If this, along with all the other options didn’t work, you can go to the Adobe support page and submit a ticket to get them to look into why your Adobe XD isn’t working.

Sometimes it seems like certain updates just break the program and if that’s the case you may have to wait for them to patch it because there is no way to go roll back the version.

Conclusion

The process for fixing Adobe XD not working is a little bit of a pain, but one of these options should fix it and hopefully, it will let you open it. There are also numerous forum posts for others who have had issues with it not opening or launching.

Remember, if all else fails you may have to reach out to Adobe support for more assistance in how to potentially fix these issues. They may just redirect you back to the page that contains basic troubleshooting problems.