Can't install/uninstall Photoshop CS3

techniques1200s · *Last edited by techniques1200s; 10-30-2008 at 08:53.*

A few months ago I installed Photoshop CS3 on my computer, it worked fine, everything was great.

My computer had some problem, and I had to run it in safe mode for a while until i had time to fix it. During that time, I still used photoshop, and it worked perfectly well. Finally, I fix the problem, and what do you know:

Photoshop is no longer installed...as in the .exe and start menu shortcut have disappeared. But the folder and program files are all still there...Adobe bridge, and all sorts of other extras are still there...but not photoshop. Thinking it got corrupted, I go to uninstall it...but there's no uninstallation icon to click on. When I click on remove in add/remove hardware, nothing happens. So, I manually uninstall everything and clean the registry.

When I try to install CS3 again after that, it says it's extracting the files, and then the installation screen never appears. But, it deos install random registry crap, and puts CS3 in the add/remove section again. Even though it wasn't actually installed. I've tried installing a different copy of CS3 and once again, no luck...it's an endless loop.

(And as a possibly important note, I've just discovered that I can't load my computer into safe mode anymore. It crashes when I try. I've also been having some wierd problems with my USB devices lately... I'm starting to just think windows is screwed up. I really want to reinstall windows only as a last resort though...)

Any ideas as to what the problem might be?

Animatrix · 10-30-2008, 16:51 | posts: 6,852 | Location: Denmark

About the system issues:

1. Have you scan the system for malware (link) ?

2. System troubleshooting check list

3. Try looking at the SafeBoot registry key

Code:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SafeBoot

\Minimal is normal safe mode
\Network is safe mode with network

Usually there shouldn't be many, if any, third party drivers loading in safe mode. However some software will load drivers in safe mode. If you don't know any of the names of windows own stuff you will have a harder time identifying third party drivers. Do not disable or delete anything in the registry, only use it to identify third party drivers, when you have done so you can uninstall the software using the driver.

4. Go to \WINDOWS\Minidump, see if you have any dump files. If you do upload the most recent one to http://www.filefactory.com

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As for CS3:

1. Try the Windows Installer CleanUp Utility, see if it can find CS3 and then uninstall it.

2. The Adobe CS3Clean Script was made to remove old beta versions, but i think it's worth trying anyway.

3. Even though the adobe knowledge base Manually remove Adobe Photoshop CS2 (Windows) is for CS2, it probably has some info you can use for manually removing CS3.