Hi,
I encountered the same problem and this is what I did to fix the install, at least partially. I say partially because my installer still couldn't install some modules of the Design Premium Suite but at least the marquee products work (who uses Air, Sing and Version Cue anyways?).
From what I've been told by TS, Win7 handles permissions differently than previous versions of Windows and this causes a lot of issues with installations, especially if you had previously installed trial versions.
On to the possible solutions. Be aware that if you are unlucky enough that you need to run through all these steps, you will probably waste 6 to 10 hours. Had I known what I know now after spending 3 weeks to get my installation to work, I would have just reformated my system and be back to work in a day. If you are facing impending project deadlines and can't afford a lot of downtime, a reformat might be your quickest, least frustrating option...
1) Login with an account that has full administrator powers.
If you're not certain your account is an admin account click Start and then your click on your account picture to bring up the "User accounts" window. Right below your account name it should say administrator. If it says Standard User you'll have problems.
2) Disable anti-virus software
3a) If you are trying to install CS4 on a fresh system go to step 4.
3b) If you are trying to install CS4 on a system that had previous versions or trials installed, you will have to run the Adobe Clean Script CS5. To run this you will have to download 2 programs:
the Windows Installer Cleanup Utility.
It is no longer officially supported by Microsoft but a quick google search will find it. You can also just download it from "http://majorgeeks.com/Windows_Installer_CleanUp_Utility_d4459.html"
Adobe Clean Script CS4
"http://www.adobe.com/support/contact/cs4clean.html"
Run the script with option 1, reboot and try to run the uninstaller. If it works go to step 5, if not...
Run the script with option 2, reboot and try to run the uninstaller. If it works go to step 5, if not...
Run the script with secret option 3, reboot and try to run the uninstaller. If it works go to step 5, if not...
4) Run the installer again, if it works, go to step 5.
If it doesn't, look at the install logs. They will be named something like "Adobe Creative Suite 4 Design Premium 4.0 04-15-2010.log.gz" and can be found here:
Windows 32-bit (XP, Vista, 7): \Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Installers\
Windows 64-bit (XP, Vista, 7): \Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Adobe\Installers\
You'll need a decompresser (such as 7-zip or Gzip) to open the container and a text editor that can handle large files (such as Textpad or Vi)
Search for an instance of the word ERROR (case sensitive) on the same line as a Registry Key or a Folder. The reason for this is that in some cases the installer will spot keys or folders that it cannot overwrite or delete due to lack of permissions. Rather than informing you it will just crash.
If you do spot offending keys mentioned in the installer log, create a copy of your registry before proceeding to delete them. Hopefully you won't have any problems deleting them. Because the installer quits as soon as it encounters one blocking key you might have to run the installer multiple times, reading the log after each crash, in order to get it to run properly. Case in point: I had to repeat this procedure 22 times.
If for some reason you don't have sufficient access to edit those keys or folders you will have to change their ownership. Let me know if that's the case and I will instructions. Due to a programming error, in some cases the ownership of some keys and folders gets set exclusively to "System" rather than to "Administrator".
5) Enjoy your installed suite.
Hope this helps,
Marc-Andre
