I’ve been doing some web designing recently and have been getting quite frustrated with Fireworks because I couldn’t find a quick way to do simple things - like draw a circle!
Had a quick Google, and sure enough on the toolbar next to the rectangle button there’s a small arrow which you are supposed to click to give you such functionality.
However, it appears that none of these arrows on the toolbar work in my Fireworks!!?!
The dropdown menu on the shapes option can be a tad tardy especially if you do not have a lot of ram. Keep your cursor in place once you have clicked the little arrow and the dropdown should appear.
Have you tried uninstalling and reinstalling fireworks?