Illustrator CS-duplication and contrained scaling

For duplicating an object hold down the option key, start moving the object THEN hold down the shift key to constrain the axis.

For scaling you can either choose to have the object's bounding box show by selecting VIEW>SHOW BOUNDING BOX or hit the "E" key on your keyboard to choose the free transform tool and then grab one of its edge nodes and scale to your heart's content.

ROCK ON!

That's what I thought. Something must be wrong here. That's pretty much how it has always worked. But it's not working now. Weird! Is there something going funky with my keyboard? ??? Scaling while holding proportions doesn't work either...

I need a drink.

• The first step in troubleshooting most any problem is deleting your Illustrator Preferences file. The Preferences file is created or updated every time you use Illustrator, and it can often become a hidden source of problems. To delete this file and force Illustrator to create a new one, follow these steps:

• Make sure you have the serial numbers for any third party plugins for Illustrator - the numbers will need to be re-entered after deleting prefs

• Quit Illustrator

• Find the Illustrator Preferences file using the following steps: If you are running Mac OS X, you should delete your preferences from your particular user account. You can find the Illustrator preferences in this folder, using the "Go to Folder..." command in the Finder: ~/Library/Preferences/

If you are running a Windows machine, you will need to search for a file called "AI Prefs", and then delete it.

• Delete the Illustrator Preferences file for the version of Illustrator that is causing problems.

• Launch Illustrator, entering any necessary plugin serial numbers.

• Immediately quit Illustrator without opening any documents. Documents can often times be the culprits for corrupting the preferences, especially since Illustrator does not write out new preferences until quit.

• Restart Illustrator.

Thanks, I did what you suggested, however, I didn't see any Ill prefs at all. Would they be by a different name? Could this be the cause of the problems?