Moving Adobe software…

It’s something we all do… moving our Adobe software licenses around from one computer to another, and if you’re lucky enough the reason for the move would be the arrival of a faster, shinier, new computer. This post will hopefully provide you with some tips and tricks on “what to do” when you want to move your software from one computer to another…

Moving?

If you’ve ever moved house, you might have experienced that moving involves a little more than just repositioning your belongings from one location to another… In fact you might even go through the contents of your pantry or cupboards and decide there are things you would rather not move. Over the period of time that you’ve worked with your Adobe applications on your soon to be ‘old’ computer you have likely collected “additionals”,  some of which you might want to keep.

The Additionals…

There’s no better time then right now to do some house-cleaning. As a self-confessed digital hoarder I can relate to finding more than just the files that my Adobe software installs in my Adobe application/program folders

Third-party plug-ins

Third party plug-ins generally come with original installers and most importantly their own licensing keys. Where to start?

• Determine which plug-ins you would like to ‘move across’
• Check on the plug-in developer’s web-site if you have the latest version of this plug-in currently. If not download the latest installer version available for your version of the Adobe software
• Locate your original licensing key. Sometimes this might be retained in an email that was send out to you when you purchased the plug-in online. In other cases there might be a licensing key on a printed card that shipped with the software when you bought it. The key might even be on the CD/DVD case itself.
• One additional thing to check is whether the Plug-in requires activation. It would be likely that you’ll need to de-activate the plug-in license before you can activate the license on another computer. In fact, we’ll cover Activation / Deactivation a little later on when we get to the actual Adobe software.

Scripts

Adobe applications can be expanded through the use of scripts and you might have obtained some scripts for the various Adobe applications that help you improve productivity or even add additional functionality to your application.

• As with plug-ins I would suggest you first of all determine which scripts you want to keep
• Then check with the script-developer if you’ve got the latest version, and obtain the original scripts, some even come with installers, although many will come with drag-and-drop instructions only.
• Scripts could be licensed as well. In that case locate the original licenses keys as you’d do for Plug-Ins.

Colour Settings

Your printer or photo lab might have given you .icc profiles or colour settings to install at some stage. Grab a copy of the settings you want to move across.

PDF settings

As with colour settings, our printer, service bureau or photo lab might have provided you with .joboptions (PDF Settings) files to use when you are creating PDF iles. Grab  a copy of the settings you want to move across for these as well.

Other

The story continues here. Depending on which Adobe application you’re looking at you might have added new Swatches sets, Brush strokes, Filters, Patterns and other gadgets that add to your creativity.

With all the previous preparations complete you’re just about ready for the move.

On to moving your Adobe Software

Most likely there are additional housekeeping tasks to perform, such as reviewing the settings and additions you made to your Adobe software.  Identify them… locate them… where possible take a copy of them to load on the new computer.

I’m thinking of things such as:

• libraries added to Illustrator’s Brushes, Symbol or Graphic Styles panel for instance, it might be sufficient to just grab a copy of the .ai files that you’ve added to the Adobe Illustrator CS4 / Presets / en_GB (or US) / etc… folders
• Actions added to Photoshop, you’d need to choose “Save Actions” from the Actions panel menu and generate a .atn file… so that you can choose “Load Actions” on your new computer and have access again.
• Printer and Document presets you might have added to InDesign.
• Preferences settings you’ve altered. Note that it’s not recommended you copy preferences files across, instead recreate the settings after the new install.
• etc.

Activation / Deactivation

Before you install your Adobe software on the new computer, you must deactivate the software on the old computer.  Choose Help > Deactivate.

The deactivation dialog for your Adobe Creative Suite bundle appears. I’d recommend enabling the Erase my serial number from this computer after deactivation completes option, to ensure that your license can no longer be used on this workstation.

Click the Deactivate button to commence the deactivation of your software. The dialog box informs you once the process has been completed.

You are now ready to move over to your new computer and start installing the Adobe software. After you’ve installed the software, first of all ensure that you’re also installing all the updates Adobe’s made available. Then test your software before adding the plug-ins, scripts etc. again.

Good Luck!

Have I missed something vital in my write-up? Add a comment below and I’ll ensure I add it in, so this post is as complete as possible. Thanks heaps.

- Cari