Lost preferences after crash

[Alexandra_lemos@adobeforums.com]

Every time my InDesign CS2 (4.0.4) crashes, either because of a bad document or because of a force quit, when I reopen the program, all my preferences are gone, including palettes' positions and pages palette preferences.
Is this a normal quirk or is there something wrong with my install?
Could it be that the fact that I have both CS and CS install is making the program get "confused"?

[Mike_Rempe@adobeforums.com]

Always keep a copy of your custom preference file outside the preference folder so you can just copy over the one after it crashes. Just remember to copy it over and don't move it over or you won't have it next time.

[Richard_Sohanchyk@adobeforums.com]

If you're crashing frequently, check your fonts. Frequent crashes are caused by dodgy fonts or font conflicts.

[Alexandra_lemos@adobeforums.com]

Mike: seems like a good workaround. Actually, that's more or less what I did last time it crashed. I made a zip archive in the same folder. So next time it happens, I'll unzip it, and voilà!
I'd still like to know if this is common behaviour though... :/

Richard: thanks for the tip! Actually, it was an ID file that must have gotten corrupted during a kernel panic. Every time I tried to save the recovered file, ID would just hang forever and I had to force quit. I eventually solved that issue by exporting as Interchange doc.