Participant

Question

Acrobat

Forum|Forum|25 days ago
June 22, 2026
4 replies
50 views

I know its no longer supported BUT, i am a retired 74 year old and was very happy using CS4 for my charity leaflets etc. I used Acrobat 9 Pro. I allowed an update to latest Acrobat, which is very nice but i cannot afford to use a monthly license - i only use it 2 or 3 times a month. I need to get Ver 9 back on but whenever i try to reinstall it stops and “preparing to install”. It installed when i first upgraded my machine onto Windows 11. Please help - i feel a little cheated because it was wall working fine. CS4 still works fine, its just the Acrobat 9 Pro that has gone.

kglad

Community Expert

there is a way to recover your acrobat 9 and use it for 30 days (max) on your win 11 computer, but that’s the best you can do without major efforts.

B

Ben M

Community Expert

What exactly are you trying to do that you needed Acrobat for? When you say for charity leaflets, Acrobat is not a design tool so that is why I ask. Were you using InDesign for your design or something else? Many applications (both Win/Mac) have an option to save as PDF (or print as pdf) if you just need to create a PDF from your document. Even a free version of Canva can accomplish that.

Nancy OShea

Community Expert

I’m sorry but CS4 and Acrobat 9 are officially dead. The aged out activation servers no longer exist.

OTHER OPTIONS:

Free Online PDF Editor
https://www.adobe.com/acrobat/online/pdf-editor.html
Free Acrobat Reader
https://www.adobe.com/acrobat/pdf-reader.html
Acrobat Standard, Pro or Studio
https://www.adobe.com/acrobat/pricing/compare-versions.html

Hope that helps.

Nancy O'Shea— Product User & Community Expert

Meenakshi0101

Community Manager

Hi geoff.newman@mac.com,

Thank you for reaching out, and sorry for the trouble caused.

As you mentioned, Acrobat 9 is an outdated and unsupported version, and it may not be fully compatible with the latest operating systems. If it was working well before and you have the installer available, please try reinstalling the application using the steps below:

Remove the currently installed application, then run the cleaner tool (https://adobe.ly/43Q3Kuu).
Reboot the machine
Install Adobe Acrobat 9 from the installer you have available.

Please note that there are no new updates for Acrobat 9. If you continue to experience the same issue, there may not be much we can do from our end.

Let us know if there's anything else we can assist you with.

Thanks,

Meenakshi

geoff.newman@mac.comAuthor

Participant

Hello Meenakshi, and thank you for responding. I have tried what you suggest and the installer starts working then stops at the “Preparing to Install” screen where it locks up. I did try to download the Ver 9 but it asked for my serial number. When i put the serial number of the CS4 into the programme it said it was not a Ver9 number. It is of course a CS4 number. Is there perhaps some way we could tell the Ver9 download what the proper serial number should be. I have the serial number for the CS4 - i have the discs in the box.

Jeff_A_Wright

Community Manager

Thank you for the update, @geoff.newman@mac.com.

I don’t see any software titles registered under the account you used to post to this public discussion forum. Please use the steps listed at https://helpx.adobe.com/download-install/apps/licensing-activation/serial-number-redemption-code/find-serial-number.html to register any serial numbers for Creative Suite 4 and Acrobat 9 that are still in your possession.

This will help verify you are using the correct serial number, @geoff.newman@mac.com and also give you fresh access to the installation files if there are available.

For more information, see

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