restore Adobe Creative Suite (single folder)

I performed a complete copy of my C drive with True Image and stored it in an Acronic Secure Zone on my external hard drive. Then I restored my C drive to the original factory settings.
When I restored Photoshop (acutally, Creative Suite), the program loads but then I get this message: "Your creative suite user name, organization, or serial number is missing or invalid. The current application cannot continue and must now exit."
I read the documentation about how to change security for the folder, but it didn't work. I have two questions (I have Windows XP Professional):
1. Would this have happened if I restored the entire drive?
2. Can I still avoid having to reinstall Creative Suite?

 

Hello gracie.

Creative suite as Photoshop + Imageready or PS +IR + Illustrator? Well, I didn't quite fully understood your post (what are factory settings?), but it seems to me that you restored only "c:\Program Files\Adobe" folder. Unsurprisingly, that won't do. Adobe software puts its components in various places - windows registry, system32 folder, documents & settings and who knows where else, so it is likely that you lost your acivation data by a simple 'brutal' restoring program folder. Answers to you questions:
1. No
2. Yes, but it requires substantial effort with Acronis TI. You would have to know exactly where are all the files and settings for CS located. I don't. I also don't understand why would you want to use Acronis, a disk imaging software, for such task. This is very unusual approach...

Cheers.

 

Thanks for your reply. I don't think that it's unusual at all to want to revert your hard drive back to it's original settings (factory settings: the way your computer was when you first bought it), and then move only the programs you really want to your newly "cleaned" hard drive so as to not have to reinstall everything and then work to get your program settings (preferences) back to how you liked them.
So I guess my new question is, does anyone know where the additional files and settings are located?

 

When you install a program the files are placed in any number of locations. In many cases you have no idea of the files or the magnatude of their volume. In addition, with a suite such as yours, thousands of entries are peppered through the registry in numerous locations.

Plainly put, You can NOT do what you want. You must reinstall the program from scratch.

The whole idea of TrueImage is that you create an image of your system "after" you have it fully functional and without any issues. Then, if you have a problem at a later date, you recover by restoring that image to your drive. Everything will be exactly as it was when you made the image - assuming that you did not change or add any new hardware.

 

Well, now I know - thanks, Richard. I actually DID purchase this product to make an "image of [my] system "after" have it fully functional and without any issues," but I was hoping that I could do this other thing as well.

See ya -- I am off to reinstall.....

 

Richard Urban,

you are absolutely correct, but maybe we can find some workaround on this. I have CS installed so maybe something can be done...

Hello again gracie.

I would like to help, but you have to be specific. Your initial post explains very litttle. It is not unusual to use ATI for restoration, but it is unusual to use it to backup a single software, especialy a one so complexed as CS. So, you say that you used Acronis to create an image of your C. I have no idea what your C contains, and how you reverted C to C. Please elaborate this: