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I just wasted much of my Saturday morning fighting with the brain damaged Adobe CS4 installer. Perhaps this post will save others some aggravation. I had Adobe Photoshop CS3 installed on my OS X 10.5 MacBook Pro. I got the CS4 update. Please be aware this is for Mac OS X only. I don’t know the traps the CS4 installer sets on windows.
- I did the install from the DVD. All seemed OK, except the installation process did not have the option to simply upgrade CS3 to CS4 – which is what I wanted to do. I did not want 2 versions of Photoshop on my system.
- After installing CS4, I tried it and it ran OK. I ran the updater and it downloaded some new files OK. Next step, remove CS3
- On the older CS3, the readme pdf file gave these instructions for uninstalling: DO NOT drag applications to the trash to uninstall them. To safely uninstall on Mac OS X, double-click the product installer in Applications\Utilities\Adobe Installers. Authenticate as an administrator, then select Remove Components and follow the on-screen instructions.
- I did the above. It took a long, long time but finished OK.
- Next, I ran Photoshop again and got this message:
adobe cs4 error
Here’s the message in text so that a search might reveal this post. “One or more files in the Adobe Application Support folder, necessary for running Photoshop, are missing. Please run the Photoshop installer re-install Photoshop.” Not good. I followed the instructions an reinstalled from the DVD.
- After reinstalling, I got the same message. Very NOT GOOD.
- A search on Adobe’s web site returned no useful information.
- A web search gave some hints: The error message is referring to directory /Library/Application Support/Adobe Note this is different from ~/Library
- There were over 17 thousand files in various folders inside /Library/Application Support/Adobe Uh Oh
- After taking a break to eat, I decided to use Apple’s Time Machine to restore /Library/Application Support/Adobe to what it was yesterday. There was 650 megabytes in 17,700 files. Time Machine did this easily. You are using Time Machine, aren’t you?
- Once this completed, I reinstalled CS4 Photoshop from the DVD. It worked!! No errors.
I hope this is of use to others.
Dagny's Desk 
Magdalena said:
Thanks, I was just about to get myself into the same mess. I still have nightmares from my last intall of an Adobe product: CS3.
I now have to install CS4 and found your post very foreboding. I did not understand something from you post: What would you do different from the start if you had to do it all over again?
Thanks!
Dagny Gromer said:
My husband just left CS3 on his iMac when he installed CS4, so that’s one option that works. I have a smaller disk drive in my MacBook Pro so I didn’t want both CS3 and CS4.
Another idea is to delete CS3 before installing CS4 – I have not tried this. My CS4 is license is an upgrade from CS3, if I deleted my CS3 I’m not sure that the CS4 upgrade would install.
I don’t really have an ideal way of doing this.
Morrisp said:
The funny thing is when you use the Adobe Uninstaller found in your application/utilities for CS3 while one of more of the programs of CS4 is running, it tells you to close them before it can continue to uninstall CS3, that means that it will alter something in CS4, Now I am still running CS3 and CS4, however if I trow CS3 programs 1 by 1 in APPZAPPER ( a fast uninstall program for free to download, which is very usefull!!) it shows me exactly what is assigned to that uninstall, and so will be removed, in APPZAPPER it shows me Adobe Illustrator CS4 Settings, that means they will be removed. Now I trow in Adobe CS4 and see if it has another .plist. I see that if you use APPZAPPER you are safe. if you unsellect all items related to CS4 you will be safe. There is an UNZAP button, that puts back all the files in its place once you find problems. I am checking it right now. … ZAPP
YEEEEEESS!!! Its safe, I zapped away Illustrator and Photoshop CS3 and made sure I unsellected all items with CS4 and the .plist’s
and they are both running just fine!!
So Install that beautiful program APPZAPPER and go ahead!
Morrisp said:
So the solution is: DO NOT USE THE ADOBE UNISTALLER BUT:
APPZAPPER: which you can download here: http://www.appzapper.com/
Korla Pundit said:
The message about “Application Support” are misleading, and that’s what makes you tear your hair out. It’s a lot simpler than that:
Copy the Adobe Unit Types file to Library/ScriptingAdditions <–EASY, NO?
Note to Adobe: ScriptingAdditions is not the same as Application Support. Duh. What great programmers!
Pilok said:
Hi,
@Korla Pundit: Does your message means that it is ok to uninstall CS3 using the official uninstaller as long as the Adobe Unit Types files have been moved to Library/ScriptingAdditions ?
@Morrisp: I look at Appzapper but it does not show any CS4 files when I try to uninstall Photoshop CS4 for example… Which program could be a good example?
Thanks in advance!
Pilok.
Morrisp said:
@Pilok,
If you uninstall Illustrator CS3 you will CS4 in there. I am now running CS4 for a few weeks without a problem after using appzapper
cheers,
Morris
Dan said:
Wow! thanks for this post!!! I was JUST about to do the SAME thing. When I ran the CS3 uninstaller it asked me to close CS4 photoshop, so I thought I better google the issue just to be sure. Thank You! haha, saved me a lot of pain definitely 🙂
Think I’ll try contacting adobe about it, see what they say to do (I also have the CS4 upgrade, so it seems to me, like you said, you need to have CS3 already installed when you install CS4) We will see what they say though, I will re-post.
Just doesn’t make sense to have TWO installs of the adobe software just cause you got an upgrade! That’s a lot of harddrive space!
Glen Barney said:
You can uninstall the older version first, and even remove the serial number.
The new installer, if it can’t find your installed prior product, will simply ask you for your prior product’s serial number. You type it in, and BOOM, you’re good to go!
RaiulBaztepo said:
Hello!
Very Interesting post! Thank you for such interesting resource!
PS: Sorry for my bad english, I’v just started to learn this language 😉
See you!
Your, Raiul Baztepo
rahul said:
in my pc i already installed cs4 know i want to instal cs3…. but it was not installing on my pc what is the problem
Cat105432 said:
Korla Pundit you saved my life! I love you!!
Dennis said:
Transferring the Adobe Unit Types file to the Scripting Additions folder worked great. In fact I had to take those files from another computer since I didn’t do this before uninstalling CS3. Great advise. Thanks
Web Designer Colorado said:
QUICK FIX!!!! Open Time Machine, look for Adobe Unit Types.osax in the /Library/ScriptingAdditions in the past, and restore it! I opened PS again and it worked!
VPN said:
moving/re-copying the Adobe Unit Types file from archived previous system folder to /Library/ScriptingAdditions is exactly what worked for me too
http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/407/kb407726.html
complete websites said:
finally i found someone who knows how to provide relevant information on the problems i have been searching for? thanks, at last i can study with pleasure..