Installing Adobe CS4 on a Mac Running Lion

A couple of months ago I purchased a new MacBook Air (MBA) laptop. The computer came with OS X 10.7 loaded (also known as "Lion"). I ran the Migration Assistant and also installed my applications on the MBA and that is when my problems started. I'm writing this article in hopes that anyone else in a similar situation will have a less painful experience and be able to solve their problem.

I installed Adobe Creative Suite 4 (CS4) Premium on the MBA. Most of the applications I used regularly worked fine (InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop). But unfortunately, Acrobat 9 Pro would not run at all. If I tried to launch it, the program would ask for a serial number. When I typed in the one serial number I have for the entire suite, it would reject it. For several weeks I just worked around the problem. The laptop is not my main machine. Also I could create PDFs from InDesign and if I had to view a PDF I could use Preview. But during my regular workflow, I use Acrobat 9 Pro quite a lot to modify PDFs that I create initially from InDesign. So if I was using my laptop, it became increasingly frustrating to me that I could not run Acrobat 9 Pro. So I tried to solve my problem and that's when the fun began.

At first I tried searching for information in Adobe's support articles. As I'm wading through Adobe's labyrinthian website, I get one of those pop-up windows asking me if I want to chat with a support person. My first instinct was to ignore it, but I decide to give that a try. The "support" person was actually just a customer service person and not a tech. So all he wanted to do was sell me on buying an upgrade to CS5.5. That would have cost me more than $500 (this includes the 20% discount they are offering until the end of the year). Oh and about that, when I asked him how long this discount was being offered, he tried to pressure me by implying that it was ending soon and I should take advantage of the offer today. I did not want to open a whole new can of worms by upgrading the software, so I told him I wasn't ready to buy the upgrade. So he was no help and I did not appreciate being pressured in to upgrading.

The next day I tried calling Adobe's tech support (based in India and they don't try to hide that fact). I spoke with one person and told him my story. After being on the phone for a while, it turns out he's not really a tech person and transfers me to someone else. That person hears my story, puts me on hold and eventually drops the call. Despite the fact that this person had my phone number (they ask for it in case you get disconnected), I never received a call back.

Next step, Twitter. Often times it's the best way to get help from a company. While I was on hold I posted this on Twitter: "Trying to chat with Adobe tech support. So far not having much luck." Sure enough, someone from Adobe with the Twitter handle "Adobe_Care" responded: "How did your chat go? What product and issue were you having problems with? ^Bing" Eventually I get a message from Adobe_Care to read this support article entitled "Error “Invalid Serial Number” | Acrobat 9 installed with CS4" and see if the instructions solve the problem. I was nervous to do what the article said because it involved uninstalling the entire suite and at this point all the other programs were working. It was only Acrobat that wasn't working. Unfortunately, my instincts were right.

I followed the instructions from the support article. Ran the uninstaller and deleted the Library files that they mentioned in the article. Then I tried to reinstall the software and this time the installer would not run at all. I never even got to the screen that asked for a serial number. It wouldn't install anything. Now I couldn't run any of the Adobe CS4 applications on the new laptop. I was in worse shape than I had been before I started to contact Adobe. Out of desperation, I tried calling Adobe tech support again. This time I got a tech named Shiva who eventually solved my problem (thank Shiva!). The whole call took about 2.25 hours but in the end, I was able to load the entire CS4 suite successfully on to my laptop and the programs ran (including Acrobat 9 Pro).

It turns out that the first support article was missing a step. After uninstalling all the software and deleting the 2 files from the library, you need to download and run the Adobe CS5 Cleaner Tool. Apparently there have been installation issues with CS5.5, CS5, CS4 and CS3 because this tool resolves the install problems for all these versions. Here's the really strange part, when I ran the Cleaner Tool, it said it didn't find anything it needed to "clean"; however, right after I used the tool I was able to run the installer for Adobe CS4. So who knows what the cleaner tool actually did, but it worked.

But here is where Adobe let me down again. I suggested both to the tech (Shiva) and to the person that handles the Adobe_Care Twitter account that they need to update the support article "Error “Invalid Serial Number” | Acrobat 9 installed with CS4". They need to link this support article to the other article about the Adobe Cleaner Tool and add that as an extra step after doing the uninstall (but before you try to reinstall). Neither person seemed to think this was a good idea. They were just glad that they helped me. But what about the next person that has my same problem? Why make them go through all this just to solve their issue? I hope my story helps someone else.

Update on Monday, November 14, 2011 at 6:38PM by Lisa Glassberg

Today I got an @ reply on Twitter from Adobe_Care thanking me for the blog post and letting me know that they've contacted Adobe's Help & Learning team to look into linking the two tech support documents.