Today I had the unhappy (and laborious) task of trying to clean up an Adobe CS3 install that went wrong (this install was of the Master Collection suite which contains pretty much everything that Adobe has to offer - Photoshop, Premiere ... loads of other stuff that I don't even know what it does). 

To cut a long story short, the install fouled up and left the PC in a state where some applications were installed and working but others weren't.  In an attempt to get the software running again I ran the uninstaller and that didn't seem to do much uninstalling but it did do something which prevented the Adobe CS3 installer from working at all ... it started and filed silently, giving no error message.

I did quite a bit of Googling and found a lot of people suffering from the same problem, but no answers.  It was getting close to the point where I was going to suggest a total reinstall of the system (something I hate doing because it involves a lot of work, and it means that I've given in to the problem) when I decided to look for an Adobe un installer.  After numerous false leads I found something that seemed promising - it's called the Adobe CS3Clean script.  It's billed as a tool to clean up any beta and pre-release installations but I was desperate and so I gave it a go.  To make it work I needed to download and install the Microsoft Windows Installer CleanUp Utility too, so I bought that in and installed both.

I ran a Level 3 Adobe CS3Clean cleanup (only level 1 and 2 are offered, but if you type a 3 into the Command Prompt when asked which level you want to run, you get the full package cleanup) and then let the script work its magic.  After a few minutes the script was done (work carefully through the script - it's pretty tedious) and I rebooted and tried the install again.

Success!  The Adobe CS3 installer worked like a charm this time.  It's a shame Adobe don't make this tool easier to find (maybe include it on the disc) because it's a real time saver.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 19th, 2008 at 20:55 and is filed under PC Doctor Tips, PC Doctor's Useful Links. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.