Thank you to those that responded to my problem. What actually happened is that Sophos anti-virus sent out a bad update that ended up quarantining adobeupdater.dll and framemaker wouldn't run without it. We had to fix sophos and do a system restore and then it worked.
so add this to your lists of things that might break framemaker. Fred -- Fred Wersan VT M?K, Principal Technical Writer 68 Moulton Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 T: +1.617.876.8085 x124 Email: fwersan at mak.com Get Realistic Background Traffic - up to 75% off! www.mak.com/YourPatternOfLife | Offer ends September 25, 2012