How to handle unregistering a copy of photoshop if that computer becomes unbootable?

Forum|Forum|4 days ago
September 18, 2026
4 replies
54 views

This happened to me two weeks ago. My Windows 11 laptop suddenly became unbootable. After restoring the computer from a bootable usb drive and installing windows, I’m unable to fully install and register Photoshop. It says I must first unregister another copy of Photoshop. That is impossible.

I’ve tried live chat. Eventually I got a person. They said they would email me with a reply. This never happened.

Does anyone have a solution to this problem? It can’t be that rare. Thanks.

Correct answer AxelMatt

Unfortunately, you didn't mention which version of Photoshop you are using. But I think it’s a perpetual license, for ex. CS6.

Normally you’ve two activations. Based on what you wrote, I assume the both activations are used and you get the message “activation limit reached”.

In this case you have to deactivate one of the older installations. It this isn’t possible you’re out of luck.

Adobe has stopped supporting older (and perpetual) version and can’t reset the activation counter.

Sorry, this isn’t my decision, this is just how it is now.

J

Jack_HarichAuthor

Participant

Thanks all for your replies. Yes, it is Photoshop CS6. I use it infrequently, but when I do I use it a lot. It’s the best there is. Looks like I will be forced to switch to Affinity Photo. Evaluation on 20 use cases (a while back) shows it’s plenty good enough. I don’t need the fancy features of current Photoshop, like AI or advanced smart selections.

My main reason for staying with Photoshop, Premiere Pro, Illustrator, etc. CS6 was to avoid paying thousands of dollars over the years for an Adobe subscription. Instead of, as in the case of Affinity Publisher, I paid $165 once. I see that today all I need would be free with Canva.

Nancy OShea

Community Expert

Catastrophic system failures happen when users foolishly install legacyware on a new computer & operating system that it was never intended to run on. Old products were built to run on older operating systems, not new ones.

Best advice: get compatible software for your computer to protect the equipment warranty.

Photoshop Elements 2027 -- 3 year license, one time purchase for Win/Mac
https://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop-elements.html
Photography Plan -- Annual Photoshop & Lightroom bundle
https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/photography/compare-plans.html

Enjoy!

Nancy O'Shea— Product User & Community Expert

davescm

Community Expert

In addition to the correct answer from Axel, that is one advantage of the CC subscription.If you exceed the two PC limit you can de-authorise one online without having access to it.

Dave

A

AxelMatt

Correct answer

Community Expert

Unfortunately, you didn't mention which version of Photoshop you are using. But I think it’s a perpetual license, for ex. CS6.

Normally you’ve two activations. Based on what you wrote, I assume the both activations are used and you get the message “activation limit reached”.

In this case you have to deactivate one of the older installations. It this isn’t possible you’re out of luck.

Adobe has stopped supporting older (and perpetual) version and can’t reset the activation counter.

Sorry, this isn’t my decision, this is just how it is now.

My System: Intel i7-8700K - 64GB RAM - NVidia Geforce RTX 3060 - Windows 11 Pro 25H2 -- LR-Classic 15 - Photoshop 27 - Nik Collection 9 - PureRAW 6 - Topaz Photo AI

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