[Cowboy]

I had to buy a new pc running windows 11 pro 64 bit, due to fact that my old pc hard drive failed. I am unable to bring it back to life. Fortunately I had all my photos, music doc, text and pdf files backed up on a separate usb drive.All programs that I have are either on CD/DVD or ISO files.

The problem I have is that two programs I am not able to install. They are
Photoshop CS4 and Microsoft Offie 2010. All programs are legal and paid for by me.
They are not OEM. So that should not be a issue.

Microsoft says the serial number belongs to another pc and that I have to uninstall and re-install. Also they say that version of Office is no longer supported and that I should upgrade to Office365.

Adobe also states that the serial number belongs to another pc and that they no longer support Photoshop CS4 and that I need to upgrade.

I have tried Librea Office and its ok but it lacks some features that ms office has. Like
saving a word document to pdf. Which I use and need.

I tried Gimp but it is way too much of a learning curve for me. After using Photoshop CS4 for so long, and the price to upgrade is not an option for me.

So the question is there a work around / solution / fix for my problem?

[TeamKomando:John]

Hello Cowboy,

Photoshop CS4 will install in compatibility mode however, it will not license as Adobe has shut down the license activation servers for CS4.

Office 2010 you should be able to install if you follow this guide here. Be sure you run in in Windows 7 Compatibility mode.

[Cowboy]

hello John,
Thank you for your reply to my problem. Sorry to say though it did not help installing Photoshop CS4.
I tried the compatibility mode for windows 7 and windows 8 logging in as admin and no I get the following error message:
Installation Failed.
One or more required components of Adobe Photoshop CS4 failed to install correctly.

[Cowboy]

Hello John,
Sorry for the delay, I was rather busy doing other things. But I wanted to say thank you for your help.
I finally got Photoshop CS4 installed and working. Here are the steps that I took.

Steps taken to install Photoshop CS4

1. Locate and delete all files and directories of Adobe. They are located in the following locations:
a. Program Files
b. Program files (x86)
c. Program Data
2. Also locate directory “Common Files” and delete Adobe files in the above directories
3. Once done, clear recycle bin
4. Reboot PC
5. Login to Admin Account
6. Before installing go to the CS4.exe icon and properties and set the compatibility to Windows 7 or 8 or Vista. I used 7. And then Install Photoshop CS4.
It should work. However if you have a new laptop or monitor that uses 4k display you may want to do the following:
1. Close / exit Photoshop CS4
2. Go to the CS4.exe and properties icon.
3. Click on Compatibility
4. From here go to Change High DPI Settings
5. Click on Program DPI
Now left click on “Use This Setting….”
Also click on “High DPI Scaling Override…”
6. Click OK
7. Click Apply and Click OK

Now start Photoshop CS4
Once again i appreciate your help.

[Author]

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