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Harry Hussey
Harry Hussey
Participant
February 18, 2026
Question

Adobe Photoshop 2026 issues

  • February 18, 2026
  • 1 reply
  • 245 views

Hi all,

    Without seeking to portray myself as an idiot, I would ask that someone, if possible, would try to explain a possible course of action as simply as possible, as I am not the most technically-minded in relation to computers and software. I know enough to get by unless there are problems.

So, for weeks now, I have had issues whereby I would be able to open a few RAW files on Photoshop 2026, and edit them, only for this to then stop working without warning, opening as a background process but not such that I can do anything. I uninstalled the program and downloaded it from Creative Cloud, and that fix seemed to work for a while, but now I have hit an issue whereby any attempt to open the app, either by selecting it to open a file in or just opening it directly first, generates an error report, and the app is unable to open.

I've twice handed over control of my laptop to Adobe customer service staff, and I do trust their integrity not to take advantage of this act of trust, but I can't keep doing so every few weeks. I'm just back from a holiday to Senegal, and have thousands of photos of wildlife to get through. It will take me six months if I can only edit 5-6 photos a day before I hit problems! At my wits end with this, please can anyone help?

    1 reply

    Harry Hussey
    Harry HusseyAuthor
    Participant
    February 18, 2026

    I uninstalled Photoshop and deleted the preferences. I then tried to open a photo, and it worked, but I had too many Chrome tabs open also and I shut Photoshop and closed running tabs. Now I can't get Photoshop to open again, except as a background process.

    UPDATE. I subsequently uninstalled and reinstalled Photoshop again, and this time it went straight to only opening as a background process.

    Sameer K
    Community Manager
    Sameer KCommunity Manager
    Community Manager
    February 19, 2026

    Hey, ​@Harry Hussey. Welcome to the Photoshop Community. Thanks for the detailed post.

    There could be a few external factors that sometimes prevent Photoshop from launching. 

     

    For now, try these steps to boot in Safe mode, and for manually recreating the MSVC++ Libraries:

    • In the Creative Cloud app, press CTRL + ALT + T (Win) to launch Creative Cloud Troubleshooter & select 'Close Creative Cloud and related processes' > click on Go.
    • Go to 'Add or Remove programs' in Windows search & find all the installations of Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable (all years).
    • Uninstall them completely. Even if there is an option to repair them, please uninstall all the existing MSVC++ packages.
    • Download a fresh package of installers for MSVC++ from this link: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp/windows/latest-supported-vc-redist?view=msvc-170
    • Right-click the downloaded file and select Extract All.
    • Reinstall all packages (32bit & 64bit) one by one & then restart the computer once.

    If this does not help, 

    You can try booting the machine into Windows Safe Mode (with networking) via Advanced Restart to see if that helps. Steps from Microsoft here:https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/windows-startup-settings-1af6ec8c-4d4a-4b23-adb7-e76eef0b847f 

     

    Let me know how it goes from here. Thanks!

    Sameer K

    (Type '@' and type my name to mention me when you reply)

      Harry Hussey
      Harry HusseyAuthor
      Participant
      February 20, 2026

      ​@Sameer K I've tried these things, yesterday I got to edit six or seven photos before Photoshop no longer opened for me. And now, today, I can't even open Adobe Creative Cloud to delete and reload Photoshop.

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