Today on Adobe forums I stumbled upon several posts that mentioned the application “Folder Lock” being a problem. I had that installed at one time on my computer, I had uninstalled it way before the CS4 installation problems. But I was able to find the file mentioned in the forums and removed it. That did not solve the problem. Then, I reinstalled Folder Lock and uninstalled it using its specific method once more. Lo and behold! I could install Air applications! Not that they are earth shatteringly necessary or useful, but it brought a sense of closure, at least at a personal level, to my ongoing battle with the Adobe installation problems.

Now, clearly Folder Lock appears to be an obstacle for Air applications to install. Shame on Folder Lock. That said, why on earth Air application installers, or Air program itself not designed, or corrected to trap this problem and give a meaningful error message instead of crashing the computer. Another point that is still very problematic is the advice given by Adobe tech support. They insisted that I should uninstall all Adobe products. Had I listened to them,uninstalling Adobe software would not help my problem. As guilty as Folder Lock, or similar software may be, Adobe and its tech support provide good company to it.

Related posts:

1. How I Installed Adobe CS4, an Ordeal
2. Adobe CS4 Install Problems, Royal Pain …
3. Munki See, Munki Do: Display Calibration

Note added on 12/15/2009. See my last post about Adobe Air application installation solution.

Note added on 1/18/2009. I wonder if Adobe Installer sets up a MiniSQL to facilitate copy protection and module integration. If it does, could that clash with MS-SQL? I believe Adobe uses Bonjour, and possibly a proxy service. There is also the FNPLicensingService.exe without which Adobe products do not run. I wish Adobe, or someone who knows the innards of the OS could say something about this problem.

In the previous post, I explained the process but it probably got mixed too much with editorial comments I was compelled to make. Here, I will address just the installation problems and what made it possible for me to install CS4. Now, I am not saying that it will work for you. What I want to share with you are two things. First, Adobe tech support is not giving the best advice or trouble shooting and you should not blindly follow them. Second, the solution may lie in unexpected places and perseverance.

I am outlining what I did, follow my steps at your own risk.

My install attempts of Adobe CS4 Design Premium resulted in failure and my computer rebooting unceremoniously. A call to Adobe support suggested that my DVD player might be at fault and that I should copy the Adobe CS4 directories to my desktop. If I were to follow this process, I am not sure if it is really necessary or not, I would have done the following instead of following the blind recommendation by the support person. This is what they should recommend.

1. Copy the Adobe CS4 directory from the first DVD to the root of drive C (C:)
2. Rename that directory to something else, like Adobe CS4-1
3. Copy the Adobe CS4 directory from the second DVD to the root of drive C (C:)
4. Do not rename this directory

When, and if the installation goes successfully and the first DVD is finished (the first directory in C:) the installer can now find the “second DVD” in the second directory of install files (still named Adobe CS4 as it was on the DVD). Not time to start the installation yet.

Then, I went to Control Panel/Add, Remove Programs and uninstalled anything I saw that said CS4. I included in that process Adobe Air which does not have the CS4 designation. I also uninstalled, most likely quite unnecessary, Adobe Flash plugin, Adobe Flash Active-X, Shockwave Player; but did not uninstall any part of Adobe CS3 components.

While still in the Add, Remove Programs, I clicked on the “Add remove Windows Components” on the left and deselected IIS and uninstalled that component. Back in the add-remove panel, I also uninstalled MS SQL engine that I ran in conjunction with the IIS to test some ColdFusion code. My suspect applications were removed.

I found and downloaded Adobe CS4 Clean Script and extracted the contents to a directory. The readme file there instructed me to download and install Microsoft Windows Install Clean Up utility. I obliged. I ran the Adobe script and followed the instructions. It showed no CS4 products to be cleaned, consequently did not do anything. I did not trust that and ran the Windows Install Clean up utility and saw entries that clearly belonged to Adobe CS4. I carefully selected them and removed their traces (“CAREFUL” is the operative word here as removal of a legitimate entry here may render that application inoperative.)

I was now ready to make another attempt to install CS4. I started from the first directory on my desktop. I should have been told to do what I explained earlier and put these directories in my C: drive. I kept taking notes of what was being installed in case I had to call the tech support again. Luckily, my process worked, except for the glitch of not finding the second DVD. I was able to recover from that and complete the installation.

What are the lessons for me and for others here, including Adobe, most importantly for Adobe people?

1. When a perfectly functioning computer with dozens of applications suddenly starts restarting itself while running the Adobe installer, Adobe should not, nay, MUST not keep pointing at others for the source of the problem. It is that application that triggers the failure, just like the hand that pulls the trigger of a gun. Just as the hand pulling the trigger cannot blame the bullet for injuring someone, Adobe has no reasonable stand to argue that another application is causing the failure while their application is running. Stop that nonsense.
2. The support procedures should not be so draconian, asking for the same information with so much detail three times during the same call is not reasonable at all. Record it somewhere, as they must be doing and move on. We have no reason to make “SPAM support calls”.
3. The support personnel must speak better English if the call originates in this country and the support number is also in this country.
4. Tech support people must not assume that I am an idiot (I happen to have two advanced degrees, one being a PhD.) and seek the most convenient way for themselves whether that is necessary or not. Even then, the person who asked me to uninstall all Adobe products including the entire CS3 did not know whether that would work or not. But he was sure that that was the only way to install CS4! Does that make sense? He told me that if that did not work they would escalate my call. Why are you willing to make me go through that process knowing that it would do some harm to my work without being sure that it would work? Why are you not escalating my problem to someone who apparently knows more that you? Why, Adobe, you do not have more people like those who would handle my “escalated call”?
5. Users, like myself, should not blindly follow the steps recommended by the support personnel. Think if what they recommend makes sense? The DVD not keeping up with the installation did not make much sense to me and I told the guy the same. But, since the cost was only time I followed the suggestion. In the end, it probably did not make any difference at all.
6. Take the least destructive path at first. I have read horror stories of people formatting their entire hard disks and installing the OS from scratch to install an Adobe product. Totally unacceptable and absolutely unconscionable to make people to do that instead of fixing your own software. If you want to have new flooring installed in your house, will you agree to have the house rebuilt? Of course not. Why should you agree to reinstall the OS on a blank drive. This is definitely and Adobe problem, and software makers like them.
7. I was ready to return the product if my last attempt did not succeed. I could have lived with CS3, I still can. Nothing is indispensable when it comes to software like this. We are buying a little more convenience, a couple of novel features, and a sense of renewal with most of these updates and upgrades. If CS4 were not available now, nobody would go out of business, photographers would not stop shooting and printing, designers would not return to their drafting tables. Let’s be sensible.
8. Talking down to users in the forum in a patronizing tone is not a form of support. Adobe, you need to instruct these people, no matter how high their internal stature may be, to communicate with people not to lecture them and deny every culpability in the problems thousands of people seem to be having. Simply acknowledging that “you are having problems but they are caused by no line of code that we put down” is simply not reasonable. Be reasonable.

Repeat after me: “It’s just a piece of software, I can live without it. It’s just a piece of software ….”

Related posts:

1. Adobe Air and Application Install Problems
2. Adobe CS4 Install Problems, Royal Pain …
3. Adobe CS4 Design Premium Stopped Working

There is a happy ending to my misery, but shame on you Adobe support personnel and principal scientist for suggesting totally inaccurate procedures for the solution. My common sense prevailed and did not listen to the “oh, so certain of himself” support person that I had to UNINSTALL EVERYTHING ON MY COMPUTER MADE BY ADOBE. You are full of it! And you know with what. I was not about to uninstall my complete CS3 and cripple my ability to work.

I tried several times to install CS4, my computer rebooting at some point on all of them. I called for tech support, language problems aside, the procedure was like Chinese torture. First person asked for my full ID, address, phone, serial number, my problem, etc. Then decided that I needed to talk to tech support. No kidding!

Then I spoke to the second person who asked me the same questions for the same information. Patiently I repeated them. Then she repeated my problem back to me, thank you. Then told me that she would connect me to the tech support person! I could speak to a royalty sooner than this, come ON Adobe. The actual support person asked me the same questions again, all the way down to the ZIP code of my address.

In any case, the tech support person told me that this was a DVD reader problem and that I should copy the CS4 directory from DVD 1 and 2 to my desktop and run the installation from there, and if I had any problems I should call back. He was half right, maybe even less much less. But where he was wrong, it was crucial and extremely frustrating. I patiently copied those directories (more than one hour), as you are probably guessing correctly by now, I had to rename one so that I could drag the second one to the desktop, Adobe CS4-1 and Adobe CS4.

Uninstalling all CS4, I restarted to install it again… Crash bang! Gone, computer rebooted. The persistent person that I am, after the computer restarted I uninstalled all CS4 again and made one more attempt. This time the installation did not even start. It came back with a “pleasant” message that “The installation for the following products failed” and listed all the components of Design Premium.

As suggested by the previous king, oh I mean the support person, I called the support number once more. I gave the case number and the guy at the other end told me that this is a known issue and I should uninstall all Adobe products and call back the next day. I told him that this did not sound reasonable as it would cripple my ability to do work, he insisted that it was the only way to install CS4. The recommended method was to uninstall everything Adobe and then run Adobe clean script which would remove all traces of Adobe products from the registry.

Well, was he ever wrong. Way wrong. Not that I did not need to uninstall everything Adobe, there was a cleaning script only for CS4.

I started thinking and reading the forum threads and other places where this issue was being discussed. This may surprise the principle scientist, there are hundreds of thousands of hits when I searched for “CS4 install problems”. This should be great news for computer repair people as they all must have hardware device failures! Yeah. One thing that kept grabbing my attention, the install process was not able to write to some directories and that could be the reason for the failure. I was running a Windows XP Pro system and the directory security was not drum tight, and I had administrator privileges anyway. Except, those directories that were controlled by the MS IIS. I knew that the installer was probably not accessing those directories, but that gave me one glimmer of hope. Another thing I noticed was the complaint by the installer that Internet Explorer was running. In my case it complained that Firefox was running. SO WHAT, what is it to you? Could there be a relationship to the IIS?

I went ahead and uninstalled MS SQL and the IIS (for ColdFusion). I followed the instructions on how to run the Adobe cleaner script for CS4 and did that. It did not report any CS4 entries in the dialogs. Then I ran the MS Install Cleaner and removed every line that had CS4 in it (there were probably 5-6 entries that the Adobe script did not show). I also terminated all the unnecessary applications, utilities, system tray crud and disabled the antivirus for a good measure (although the principle scientist said it should not matter). Then, I started the install from the desktop as instructed. Since the previous crashes happened at or near Adobe Media Player, I disabled that and started the process. It kept going, and going, and going… I jotted down the applications it installed and as their names appeared. This was exciting, it went further, and further, AND finished the first DVD (directory that is from my desktop.) Then it asked me to insert the second DVD into C: huh! I thought for sure if I clicked OK, it would ask me to point to where it was. Nooooo. It insisted that I put the second DVD into C:.

I was royally ticked off (polite substitute here) at the first guy who actually told me that I would point to the directory where the second DVD directory was. YOU WERE WRONG, man, wrong (and I am really restraining myself here). I tried copying one folder into the first, that did not work because of some directory collision. I tried switching their names, no way. I was panicking that I would fail after having come this far. In a flash of inspiration, I moved the second CS4 directory from my desktop to the C: and clicked on OK.

LO AND BEHOLD! The impossible happened. There was no other way of installing CS4 other than uninstalling everything Adobe. But the miracle was happening on my computer, the chosen one!

Now, Adobe people please read this carefully. All the events I describe here are true (case ID can be provided upon request to Adobe), they took over a three day period, on the same machine. If it had, as the principle scientist suggested, any hardware or driver problems should my install have succeeded? My scientific thinking tells me: NO.

So, please review all your stone walls, retrain your personnel, work better at making your software to be a good citizen of the computing world, and for goodness sake, stop being on the defensive ALL THE TIME. Accepting some responsibility for some of these problems could be cleansing for the soul.

I will post a less verbose version of my process on my blog tomorrow if you care to read it. http://www.keptlight.com/blog/

Note: Adobe, I like your products, use them, teach them, recommend them. But you need to come off the pedestal and meet with mere mortals, us. Your bread and butter.

Related posts:

1. Adobe Air and Application Install Problems
2. How I Installed Adobe CS4, an Ordeal
3. Adobe CS4 Design Premium Stopped Working