Need to re-install Photoshop Elements ver. 11 to new location. Installer will not accept new location!

[party2]

Hi,

In 2012 - before Adobe was using the Creative Cloud subscription service - I purchased and registered an electronic download of full version Photoshop Elements 11.

Now I have a major problem.

Chat and Telephone Support kick me out - they say they can not support an older version anymore! ( crumb!), so my last resort is this Forum. I'm fully paid-up and a member of Adobe.com. I don't plan on paying again for a newer version. Why should I?...Read on please....

I am running  Apple OX 10.11.6 (El Capitan) on an otherwise healthy and happy iMac. My earlier install of Photoshop was located on an external HD, in a sandbox. It happily lived there until recently when that drive became damaged, therefore I lost Photoshop. NO PRBLEM! I thought to myself. I saved the .dmg install file elsewhere (naturally), I'll just re-install Photoshop to a new location.

But NOT SO EASY! The installer runs along perfectly, accepting my serial #, Adobe.com i.d., etc. BUT....when it displays the location it is installing to, it accepts only that old, lost, location on the damaged and discarded external HD. The "Help" message says "Can only install Photoshop to its original location." Great! And it DOES MEAN IT, because I have tried every which way - four times! - to re-install to a new location. Have used, first, my own .dmg file. Here is the file name : PhotoshopElements_11_WWEFDJ.dmg. This filename is identical to the download file available on Adobe.com. today, and they all reject a new install location. The downloads have exact same file name as my original .dmg file. The installer just REFUSES to install to a location different from the original install. Crazy, huh?

What happens at "Finish" is Photoshop will open itself up - but running just in memory, it does not sit anywhere on my system HDs. When I close that first Open, Poof! the entire app deletes itself!

Is this an insidious marketing ploy to force old customers with perfectly good Installer and Serial# and Adobe.com i.d. to buy up to the wildly more expensive latest version of Photoshop? If this is the case, Adobe just lost a customer.

The must be a way to convince the installer to put the app somewhere else, surely!

Can you help?

[John T Smith]

Based on my experience with Windows (I don't do Mac) I will GUESS that there is something in your Mac that still "remembers" where the program was before

For Windows, there are system registry cleaners that remove all traces of a program, allowing a completely fresh install

So you may need something to do the same in your Mac

I think this is all about Cloud programs, but may help

Sign out of your account... Uninstall... run the Cleaner...

-for non-Cloud programs you need to DE-activate before uninstalling

-https://helpx.adobe.com/x-productkb/policy-pricing/activate-deactivate-products.html

-http://helpx.adobe.com/creative-cloud/help/install-apps.html (and uninstall)

-using the cleaner after uninstalling and before reinstalling is often needed

-https://helpx.adobe.com/creative-cloud/kb/cc-cleaner-tool-installation-problems.html

-Restart your computer... Sign in to your account... Reinstall

-and 5 steps in reply #1 https://forums.adobe.com/thread/2144928

[kglad]

first clean your computer per Use the Creative Cloud Cleaner Tool to solve installation problems

restart your computer

reinstall pse 11

[party2]

Hello kglad,

Thanks for your contribution to this string. You will understand from my Reply to "John" that I'm getting nowhere with Adobe's product that I legitimately paid for and now is useless!

To your point about Creative Cloud Cleaner, it appears that it's only for Windows, not OS X! Figures! At least I can't find any "Cleaner" for Mac anywhere on the page you cited. And as I wrote to John, my Creative Cloud account shows that I have zero purchases to deactivate or activate! GO FIGURE!

I have already supplied to Adobe Support  ― before they kicked me out for having an older version ― all details of my purchase of PS 11 ; date, email, Order No., Serial No...etc. etc.

Now they say I never made any purchase.

This is getting troublesome.

[kglad · Accepted solution]

there's a mac cleaner, too and it affects pse files.  click the link in message 2 using your mac computer.

[party2]

Hey kglad,

I am blind, but you can see quite clearly!! Thanks for locating the CC Cleaner for Mac. It worked perfectly. Now my PS 11 is re-installed in its new location and all is bliss!

Your initial intuition was spot-on. This was a "Cloud" issue. While the CC Cleaner worked - it found PS11 PLUS a couple other Adobe apps I didn't even know I had  (     ! ), I can't claim to understand exactly what happened.

The following is just my personal commentary :

I've always felt suspicious of the Creative Cloud thing. It looks to me like one gigantic cash grab. I am really happy that I purchased my PS BEFORE the Big Grab, because at Adobe's rental rates in the CC today,  by now I'd have paid $ thousands for the app! It appals me that Adobe is able to get away with such a swindle. If I were a newbie shopping for creative apps today, I'd take one look at  Adobe's perpetual rental deal, and run the OTHER way fast!

This kind of piratical money gouging is one pernicious new outcome in the evolution  of capitalism, and I revile it. WHO in their right mind would would sign up for Adobe's perpetual rental scheme? ( Well, apparently significant numbers of people have and continue to "sign up" with Adobe. So I'm tilting at windmills here. ) That's the fang-toothed vampirism of the monopoly marketplace.

Still, the way that Adobe took their already-existing near-monopoly of creative apps and then hardened their hold on the wallets of consumers' through the conversion of their trade to rentals, not sales, is the most brutal show of pirate capitalism. Pure calculated greed!

What if automobile manufacturers decided to no longer sell their cars and instead offered only leases? Or electronics manufacturers...like Apple or HP, Epson, Dell etc.etc. It would be a massive and terrifying ( and, ultimately self-defeating ) rape of the marketplace. So WHY does Adobe get away with it?

It sickens me. 

Well, END OF LECTURE.

You experts who helped me with my issue here are very perceptive and sophisticated thinkers, and you have my thanks! THANKS!

Will Travis

Vancouver CA

<Removed by Moderator>

[kglad]

you're welcome.

[party2]

Hello John,

Your ideas make sense. Macs do not have a "registry" as such. In place of that I have folders that hold "Product Support" and "Preferences." These folders manage registry-like functions just like the Windows registry. They are more accessible than the Windows registry and are easy to manipulate. Having installed/uninstalled PS 11 a few times now, I checked my Uninstaller app for "relics" left behind from prior installs. There were numerous relics, which I deleted. That normally fixes up any weird installing/running behaviours for applications.

Having cleared up that issue you raised, the next thing was to Sign In/Out from my Creative Cloud account and Deactivate the PS 11 product listed there. GHESS WHAT? Creative Cloud says I HAVE NO APPLICATIONS!!!! WTF???!!

Why would I even HAVE a Creative Cloud account if I never purchased any application ? .

Something is screwy about the Adobe system. Clearly, Adobe doesn't believe that my purchase of PS 11, and its Serial # and Order No. really exist!

II have a bad feeling that I'm getting screwed here.