Well, I use a different Eclipse (without Activiti Designer installed in it) to develop palette shaped that to test them. Whether you launch from that Eclipse or install a separate one, or, as you both have done now, install Activiti Designer in your development Eclipse, should all really make no difference. The problem you guys are having with differences between Eclipse installations probably have to do with either the Maven setup or the dependencies with projects you have opened for customizing Activiti Designer projects. Hard to tell from here. If you have a stacktrace or something, it may be easier to tell why one works and the other doesn't.