Cubase 5.5.3 (Big Problems??)

I recently started working on a project with a friend of mine.

We had different updates for Cubase, so we both updated to 5.5.3.

After sending a folder to him with all the audio samples and the needed .cpr file we discovered that his computer would freeze when Kontakt or Battery would be asked to browse for the sample folder or search the system for the files.

I thought it may have just been his setup, so I moved the folder on my system, that the original samples came from, into another folder, so my system would have to search for them, and my system froze. I tried several times but the freeze happened every time.

I downgraded to Cubase 5.1.0 (the last update I had before upgrading) to see if the project would be able to search for files in the 5.1 update and there were no problems. We both downgraded and project sharing is no problem.

I was truly enjoying the new layout of 5.5.3 (except that when you right click to get different editing options all the options are stretched out in a single line instead of two lines, which makes you have to move your mouse further to select the draw and mute tools, which I use frequently) and I know it is said to be the last service update, but I do hope that Steinberg’s team will go back and fix this problem that was created by creating the 5.5.3 update. This problem affects me greatly and I’m sure will affect others in the future.

If anyone has any ideas as to how to resolve this, please let me know

I have found something that may be related (if i understand your situation)

A busy project that worked pretty well (but had a few, very occassional crashes) is now crashing like crazy since upgrading to 553 from 51 I thought it was just happening on new projects, but I just opened this 2 month old project and its crash city.
The biggest bopper in the mix is Superior Drums. But it was manageable before 553. I have to try and freeze that instrument before it crashes just to make it through. But If I can’t tweak this instrument anymore it will s*%k bigtime.

I’m thinking of downgrading to see what happens . I saved the binaries before the upgrade, what’s the best way to explore this?