Cannot use this product under a guest account

[BZEZ]

I installed Photoshop Elements 12 today and registered online.  I tried to use Photo Editor and get a dialog box "cannot use this product under a guest account". I went to the Organizer side of the program and tied to log in under Help, but that didn't work.  Please tell me how to correct this issue.

[27Prac]

This is the as designed behaviour of Photoshop Elements. I think the reason for this is PSE needs to create scratch disk file on the local drive. You must have rights to create the file or Photoshop won't run and guest account doesn't have one.

[thjakob]

Hallo Zilin,

Can not realy answer your question, I'm just testing version 12 (test version) and can not reproduce your problem.

What I did:

- installed the program logged on as an administrator

- started and registered (the test version) logged on as an administrator

- logged on as restricted user and started the program

    (had to reregister the program on the first start - and windows prompted me to enter the admin-password via UAC)

Regards

Thomas

My installation:

- Windows 8.1 Preview (it's a test pc...)

- UAC left turned on

[27Prac]

HI thjakob,

I think you are logged on with a standad user account that is why you are able to use PSE. Issue exists only with guest accounts.

[thjakob]

Hello 27Prac,

Yes, I'm logged on as a standarduser.

Are you really using the real guestaccount (which you have to enable before)?

(never heard someone is using this account)

regards

Thomas

[27Prac]

Yes guest account is different from standard account. An operating system is shipped with a default guest account.

[BZEZ]

in my case, I checked and the Guest Account is Off. I still get the message cannot use this product under a guest account. Using Windows 7. Any other suggestions?

[27Prac]

Hi BZEZ,

I guess I am confused. You mentioned in the post above that you have logged in as a guest account. So you are saying that you are getting this issue even with Admin log in.

[BZEZ]

Hi 27Prac,

I am the only user on this computer and am logged on as an administrator. I did NOT change the log on to be a guest user before installing the program, but apparently PSE12 thinks I did. I didn’t even know that Guest User account existed until you told me in this thread. Thanks by the way! I checked under Manage User Accounts and Guest User is off. Do I need to uninstall the program and start over?

[27Prac]

It is really strange that even with Admin account you are getting this issue. Try below solutions

- Restart your machine and then try to run PSE Editor and see it it launches fine.

- If first solution doesn't work then navigate to location "C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Photoshop Elements 12" and then at this location look for PhotoshopElementsEditor.exe. Right click on it and choose "Run as a Administrator" . Enter the administrator credentials if required.

- Reset Editor Preferences if above two solutions doesn't work. Go to Edit >> Preferences >> General .Then click on the button to Reset Preferences on next launch.Close the program and then re-start it.

Let me know if any of this works.

[BZEZ]

27Prac,

Unfortunately, no joy yet.

- I restarted the machine. I checked to make sure Guest Account was off before I did that and it is off. The PSE Editor still gave me the same dialog box.

- I navigated to the PhotoshopElementsEditor.exe, right clicked, and chose Run as Administrator. I got the same dialog box immediately so I never got to enter any credentials.

- I am confused about the 3rd suggestion. Where do I locate Edit>>Preferences>>General? If it’s in the Editor part of the program, I can’t get to it. If it’s in the Organizer part of the program, I see the chain Edit>>Preferences>>General, but there is nothing on the General tab that says Reset Preferences. The two buttons that reset are Reset all Warning Dialogs and Restore Default Settings.

Please point me in the right direction to try this last step. Thanks.

[27Prac]

For last step go to location "C:\Users\[YOURUSERNAME]\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Photoshop Elements\12.0\Editor" and delete everything in the folder and then try to relaunch.

[BZEZ]

I went to the user folder that was (my name) administrator which is what I think I was logged in as. That path took me to an Editor folder but it was empty. There were 3 other user folders and I tried looking at each one. One was a straight administrator user, but there was no Photoshop Elements path. The other two users were Public and Default. Neither had a path to Photoshop Elements. I guess I’m stuck again.

[27Prac]

I guess I am running out of solutions. Before trying out the reinstallation which will be the final solution  , can you please make one more admin account and log in with that account and see if editor gets launched. Also give it a try with one standard account as well if making a admin account doesn't solve the problem.

[BZEZ]

You are getting beyond what I know how to do on the computer. My administrator was out of town but I just called his cell and he will work it tonight. Since you tried so hard to figure this out, I will be sure to respond to your last thread to tell you if he was successful and what he did. Once again, thanks and I’ll be back later this evening.

[BZEZ]

OK, we have a fix. My Administrator noticed that there was an Adobe Acrobat issue found at http://forums.adobe.com/thread/783362 that was almost identical to what I was experiencing. In that thread, the user was a member of a group called “Administrators” but was also a member of the group called "Guests". The program saw both user accounts but allocated the user to the Guests account and gave the same error “Cannot use this product under a guest account”. With that background, my Administrator tried to remove me from the Guests group. However, I have Windows 7 Home Premium as my operating system and it doesn't allow access to the Local Users and Groups Snap-in under the Microsoft Management Console (MMC). Therefore, he had to:

Open a command prompt (run CMD as Administrator)

net localgroup Guests /delete

Log off user

Log back on as user.

When he did that, I had a fully functional PSE12. So tomorrow I will begin to explore the new program and have high expectations that it will be as great as its reviews. Thanks again for all your help.

[lowellw98197222]

Thank you so much.  I will follow the answers and see...!

[jasonp7584004]

Hello Sir! I have a solution for you problem ^_^ .. just click this link CAN'T LOGIN GUEST ACCOUNT . FIXED !!! - YouTube  and Enjoy ^_^

[Ybhandere]

This is a translation, Google Translate is responsible if the sentences are meaningless. 🙂 I had the same problem and solved it. The solution method is right-clicking on the Computer on the Desktop and choosing Manage. On the screen that opens, we open Local Users and Groups. On the bottom tab, we select Groups, double click on “Guests” among the options listed in the right section, remove our own username among the members and say apply and close. The problem went away when I restarted the computer.