Take my advice: Before you even think about installing Adobe trial software, do a full mirror backup of your computer’s hard disk, and be prepared to use it. I had horrible problems with Adobe Creative Suite 4 (CS4), and according to the three tech support guys in India that I spent hours on the phone with today, I am not the only one.

Here’s the whole sad story, with the ultimate solution.

• I downloaded and installed trial versions of Adobe CS4 programs while waiting for my licensed copy to arrive in the mail. The Adobe site said that I could enter my serial number in the trial copies, so I didn’t mind the 2 gig download.

• When my licensed version arrived, I tried to enter my serial number into the trial software and it was rejected. I called Adobe tech support and was told this sometimes happens – I just have to uninstall the trial software and reinstall from DVD.

• I tried to uninstall the software in the usual way, and the uninstall failed – repeatedly. It took about 15 minutes to run, and then told me the program was not uninstalled, “see below for why.” But there was nothing written “below”. I call Adobe tech support again.

• After again making me spell out my mailing and email address, Adobe tech support told me to download the Adobe CS4 cleanup utility and uninstall it that way. I did this, and it appeared to remove all registry entries. The files were still on my disk and in my Start menu, so I deleted these manually.

• I loaded up my DVD and try to install my licensed copy – software that retails for $1799 (no decimal points there). But the trial version was not completely gone and the installation failed, repeatedly, with no details as to why.

• I called Adobe tech support for the third time, and again had to laboriously spell out my mailing and email address. The tech support guy told me to download a Flash removal utility and run that. I did as instructed. He then told me to download the Adobe CS3 cleanup utility. I told him I’d never had Adobe CS3 on my computer, but he said to download and run it anyway. His instructions had the quality of a magic spell: run it three times for Level 1, three times for Level 2, four times for Level 3, and four times for Level 4. This seemed pointless to me – especially since log messages made it clear that nothing further was removed after the first run – but I did as instructed.

  Then he told me to create a new admin account on my computer and install the program from there. That’s where I got off the bus. No way was I reconfiguring my computer and creating a new admin account I didn’t want or need just to install this software! He said that if I wouldn’t do as he said he couldn’t help me any further, and he hung up.

• Hoping that the additional cleanup had fully removed the trial software from my system, I again tried to install Adobe CS4 from the DVD I’d purchased at great expense, and again it failed. I cursed loudly, which my neighbors surely heard through the thin walls of my apartment building.

• I then did the only thing left to me: I wiped my hard disk, and restored my most recent backup – which luckily was from only 10 days ago. I also restored some some additional data I saved before the Big Wipe, then I did another mirror backup just in case.

• With great anxiety (since I was out of ideas if this failed), I again ran the installation program from DVD. Happily, this time things went a little better. But even with a clean system, one of the packages – InDesign 4 – failed to install. The error message gave no hint of why. I continued with the rest of the installation, and everything else installed properly.

• After the installation program finally completed – it took at least an hour (what takes so long?!) – I followed this advice from an Adobe KnowledgeBase article:

  • I ran msconfig, using the Start menu’s Run command.

  • On the Startup tab, I clicked Disable All.

  • On the Services tab, I selected Hide All Microsoft Services, clicked Disable All, then reselected the two FLEXnet Licensing Service items.

  • I applied the changes, clicked OK, rebooted, and ran the Adobe CS4 installation program again, selecting only InDesign 4 to reinstall. The installation finally completed without errors.

  • I went back into msconfig, selected Normal startup, and again rebooted. My $1799 software suite was finally installed – only took 12 hours, great distress, shouting loud enough for my neighbors to hear, and a full-blown migraine.

For the record, I am running 64-bit Vista on a Thinkpad T400, and I disabled my antivirus software and firewall before installing or uninstalling. I noticed that the trial software on the Adobe site is 32-bit rather than 64-bit (unlike what was available on DVD). This could have been part of the problem.

This software costs thousands of dollars – don’t you think Adobe should ensure the thing works before collecting that much money from people??

So be warned!! Do not even think of installing software from Adobe – especially trial or beta software – without first doing a complete system backup. If you need to do a clean install, the only way is to wipe your system.