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Recommendations to Access Older Adobe Products

Forum|Forum|4 months ago
September 12, 2025
5 replies
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I have two older products that I purchased a number of years ago: Adobe CS5 (of which I only use Photoshop) and Adobe Acrobat Pro. I have serial numbers for both. I bought them when I was working as a teacher. To get education pricing, I had to register them with my school email address. I have retired, so I no longer have access to that address. My PC is at the end of its life, I just bought a new machine and want to download my products to it. It seems to me that I just need to associate the download links with my new email address, so I contacted Adobe support via chat. Their final answer was “I have checked but the Acrobat Professional and Adobe Design Premium is a perpetual plan which has been discontinued and Adobe no longer supports the perpetual plan anymore. In this case, it would not be possible to transfer the license to a new system but you can still use it from the device it is activated with. Please reach out to community.adobe.com for further assistance with the perpetual license.” I am not happy with the answer, but it seems I have no recourse. I am reaching out as instructed to see if anyone has an easy solution for getting the products downloaded on my new machine. I asked ChatGPT, but the answers were complicated and not fool-proof. Thanks for any advice you can give.

Windows

Correct answer Nancy OShea

Sadly, I do not.
By @Scott.B

=========

Game over. Without access to the EDU installers, you can't use your EDU serial number to activate the apps.

Acrobat Pro is aimed at professional users. Most people don't need more than FREE versions of Acrobat Reader & the online PDF tools.

Make a list of the other Adobe apps you use most. Do a Google search for substitutes.

Good luck.

B

Ben M

Community Expert

For educational discounts you typically just needed the installer and serial number if you qualified for the pricing. If this was an educational license meaning the school bought it for you, then you might not have a way to access it. Assuming it is the former, if you didn't deactivate the software before trying to put it on a new computer then this could open up a whole other issue.

As others have mentioned though the software (CS5) is very old. If you really need up to date Photoshop, you could go with the Photography plan for $20/mo, but based on your usage or if CS5 was meeting your needs, something like Photoshop Elements at $99 (3yr license), may be more than enough for your needs. Have you considered those options?

S

Scott.BAuthor

Participant

I have slightly considered them. My frugal side balks at the thought of
continuing to pay for something I already bought. Thanks for the
information.

Scott Bishop

kglad

Community Expert

your serial numbers are only going to be valid for education versions.

John T Smith

Community Expert

Do you not have the original install program(s) either via download or on disc?

For serial number programs you may download only if you bought direct from Adobe
-Log in to your Adobe account and click this link https://account.adobe.com/products

--you do, of course, need to log in using the account you used for your purchase
--IF a download is available there will be a Download button under the program name

S

Scott.BAuthor

Participant

Sadly, I do not.

Scott Bishop

Nancy OShea

Correct answer

Community Expert

Sadly, I do not.
By @Scott.B

=========

Game over. Without access to the EDU installers, you can't use your EDU serial number to activate the apps.

Acrobat Pro is aimed at professional users. Most people don't need more than FREE versions of Acrobat Reader & the online PDF tools.

Make a list of the other Adobe apps you use most. Do a Google search for substitutes.

Good luck.

Nancy O'Shea— Product User & Community Expert

Nancy OShea

Community Expert

1. CS5 is 15-year-old software that was built to run on Win XP, Vista, Win7— all discontinued. Nobody has access to those operating systems anymore.

2. CS5 is not supported. Assuming you had the installation disks that came with your purchase and an old working device that could support it, there's still no guarantee of success.

Most Adobe products work on these systems, no more than 2 versions back:

Windows 11 (64-bit) versions 24H2, 23H2; Windows 10 versions 22H2, 21H2;
MacOS 15 (Sequoia), 14.7 (Sonoma), 13.6.7 (Ventura).

NOTE: MS is ending Win10 in Oct. Apple will release Tahoe later this year.

- https://helpx.adobe.com/creative-cloud/system-requirements.html

CS5 REPLACEMENTS:
==============
FREE Acrobat Reader -- view, comment, print & sign PDF.
https://www.adobe.com/acrobat/pdf-reader.html

FREE Online PDF Editor
https://www.adobe.com/acrobat/online/pdf-editor.html

Paid Acrobat Pro -- the complete solution for creating and saving PDF.
https://www.adobe.com/acrobat/acrobat-pro.html

Photoshop Elements (3 year license, no subscription needed).
https://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop-elements.html

Creative Cloud Annual Photography Plan
- Photoshop CC and Photoshop on iPad
- Camera Raw
- Lightroom on desktop, mobile and the web
- Lightroom Classic
- Portfolio website + hosting
https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/photography.html

Creative Cloud Bundles & Single Apps for mobile, web & desktops
https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/plans.html

Hope that helps.

Nancy O'Shea— Product User & Community Expert