If you've been following along, you may have noticed I had a little, eh, trouble, once I tried the Adobe Camera RAW 5.6 beta update from Adobe Labs.  Suddenly Bridge didn't display either my RAW file thumbnails OR my ratings and tags.  I tried everything, dumping the cache, resetting the preferences, even dumping the plugin and trying to put the old one back.  I got nothing. 
 

Finally I got an answer from Michelle Qi (of Adobe, I presume) on the Adobe Camera RAW forum.  Well, let's say I got a lot more than an answer, I got a whole lot of help.  Using the same procedure I've been using every time I've updated the plugin, I'd apparently thrown a wrench into the works. Here's what I did, and what you should NOT do. 
 

First, I moved the plugin that was installed into a new folder on my desktop so it wouldn't be overwritten.  Then I downloaded the new beta plugin and ran the installer.  (Yes, if you haven't done it in a while, it needs an installation, not just the old "drag and drop" anymore. 
 

The update needs the old plugin in place, since it's actually just a patch, not a full plugin.  Who knew? 
 

What I could have done would have been to copy the original and save it somewhere, leaving a copy in the plugin folder.  Then if I wanted to go back, I could have just dragged the old one back in.  That would have created more problems, though, the installer for the new plugin, once it got out of beta, wouldn't have installed properly.  It would have thought it had already been installed, and I gather from what Michelle said, there's no way around that. 
 

The fix was, essentially, to manually re-install the 5.5 version, then to manually install the 5.6 version. Easy enough, but only if you have the actual plugins.  I'm still a little confused, but we had do use files that she supplied, not files available for download. 
 

I can't say I'm too pleased that a beta version demanded such a "no turning back" approach, but that's the story, folks, and a big BIG shoutout to Michelle and the Adobe folks for their help!