Adobe Photoshop CS6 - Error on launch (Windows 7)

[juergenb64035506]

Hello everyone,

the existing installation of Adobe Photoshop CS6 stopped working on several Windows 7 Workstations.

When I launch Photoshop the following error appears: "Das System kann die angegebene Datei nicht finden"

Possible translation: The system cannot find the specified file

This error appears only when trying to launch the x64 version of Photoshop, x86 is working fine.

The same applies to Adobe Bridge (or an other app of the CS6 Design Suite included in both x86 and x64 versions).

There's nothing in the event logs of Windows.

I have tried to reinstall CS6, with and without removing the installed version beforehand, also with usage of the Adobe Creative Cloud Cleaner Tool.

There haven't been changes to the workstations besides installing Windows Updates, it's unclear when this problem actually started to appear.

I'm having a problem affecting Photoshop Elements 11 on even more workstations which might or might not be related:
Unable to launch Photoshop Elements 11 on Windows 7
Noteworthy: CS6 actually remains working on a single machine which is also affected of the Elements problem

I'd be glad if you guys had some ideas what I could do to get Photoshop working again.

[Jeff A Wright]

Moving this discussion to the Photoshop General Discussion forum.

[Akash Sharma]

Hi juergenb,

As I understand you're able to open the 32 bit version of Photoshop and other apps on your computer but after successfully installing the 64 bit version of Photoshop and Bridge you're getting the error message you've mentioned. It seems related to the specific user account you're working on. What happens if you use a new admin user account to open these apps? See Adobe troubleshooting: Creating an admin account in Windows

Thanks,

Akash

[juergenb64035506]

Hi Akash,

thanks for your reply!

Honestly, if I had the choice, I'd opt out of installing the x64 vesions of the bundled software. Upon deselecting i.e. Photoshop (x64) in the installer the x86 version is automatically deselected, too.

I tried your suggested solution with no success.

The machines are domain joined (forgot to mention that), creating local admin accounts wouldn't be a solution. Even recreating the user profiles would be quite troublesome.

That's the error which appears upon launching Photoshop.

I'm also experiencing the same error on a new Win 7 Pro x64 machine. Local admin, standard domain user, domain user with administrative rights, nothing works. Same error as above.

[kerrim22500754]

I am also having this problem with the English version of Photoshop CS6.  And yes the translation is exactly correct.  x86 works but not 64 bit.

I am also Domain joined.  Uninstalled my antivirus, reinstalled several times, etc.

I tried to reinstall using Creative Cloud.  That just installed that latest CC 2018 version which didn't have any problems opening up. 

Would be great to get a solution to this.

[mrhavre · Accepted solution]

There's a configuration option in the registry called PreferExternalManifest, which causes this problem. I have no idea why this value was suddenly set to 1 for me, maybe in a Windows Update, or by another program. But anyway, changing it from 1 to 0 solved the problem for me and the 64bit version can now be opened again.

You can change the value with regedit.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\SideBySide\PreferExternalManifest

Set it to 0.

[juergenb64035506]

Thanks for your suggestion, changing the value back to 0 really helped.. Amazing how such little changes break everything.

[ckracht]

Had the same problemm with CS5 Photoshop on a Windows 7 machine.  Woke up this morning and got the error message "System cannot find file specified." IT was working 12-housr before.

Checked the Registry entry mentioned and surprise it was "1".  Changed it to zero and Photoshop fired right up.  WTAF is going on?

Thanks for the great suggestion.