CS6 activation

Forum|Forum|1 year ago
May 27, 2025
3 replies
561 views

I have a legit Photoshop CS6. My PC got hit by a virus, the whole screen went white, and I had to reinstall Windows 10 and all my applications, but now CS6 is not letting me activate, tellling me that it is already in used in max allowed PC, which is not true. It was on my son's laptop and my same pc. My son has deactivated his. Now it is not activated on any any other device at all and I can't activate it on my same PC that it was on a few days ago.

Windows

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ShadowTaro

Participant

I'm having much the same issue with my entire CS6 Suite, but I’ve yet to uninstall from my laptop. But if this is going to be the result how can I reliably deactivate it from my laptop risking losing all my access to a program and files I have hundreds of thousands of hours of work in them.
In the past when I had a similar issue, Adobe just alowed another device on my account temporarily so I could work through the problem and was able to fix my activation way past end of life, but now they can’t? Adobe you need to have a better resolution for this when people have bought your products outright. Why not make them accessble for 10 devices then if they’ve used up all that then thats fair. But either way, loosing access due to technical issues, then being denied access even when following the process of deactivation that Adobe outline is wrong.
Furhter if you are going to maintain the databases and connection for your product to be verified, then you are able to fix these issues, so im confused why you insist you can’t or is it more a you won’t?

jane-e

Community Expert

@ShadowTaro

Account issues are better addressed in the Account, Payment, & Plan forum, where Adobe staff will see your post:

https://community.adobe.com/account-payment-plan-4

The only thing the volunteers can do in the Photoshop forum is to tell you what Adobe’s policy is.

Jane

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AxelMatt

Community Expert

I think you've only chance. It seems the deactivation of the Photoshop installation of your son's laptop went wrong.

If possible install Photoshop on this laptop and take a look if it's works. Then goto Help - Deactivate.

Then try to activate your installation on the Windows 11 PC.

If this fails, unfortunately you are out of luck. Adobe has stop the support for CS-CS6 products, but CS5 and CS6 can still be activated and deactivated. But it isn't possible that the support can reset the activation counter anymore.

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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lanef73Author

Participant

Thanks for your response. They are blocking the activation on my pc on false premises. Their pop-up message says, the application is already active on 2 devices? A big lie. My son has deactivated his on his old laptop the proper way, he is not using it anymore as he has moved to subscription over a year ago. My PC screen went white, a virus hit my machine. I have plugged it to another monitor, same issue, so the monitor is perfect. I have called the customer service people twice, I even asked one of them, can you tell me how would you deactivate an application on a PC that got hit by a virus and no program could be opened? He did not answer. According to their message, I can reactivate, but the reality is their system blocks you with a big lie. My son rang them today and they finally admitted that now there is only one device with activation, kind of must be my same PC before the virus. So, what was the big lie about the application was already active on 2 devices? And the licence is for two devices anyway. Communication with them is like climbing MT Everest.

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lanef73Author

Participant

Sorry pardon my typo, I mean on "false pretences" not premises.

creative explorer

Community Expert

@lanef73, that stinks when your legitimate Photoshop CS6 license isn't activating after a system reinstallation, especially when it was previously working on the same PC and your son's laptop has been deactivated! This "max allowed PCs" message indicates that Adobe's activation servers still believe your license is active on more devices than permitted, even if it's not actually in use. This commonly happens after a system crash or reinstallation because the software wasn't properly deactivated before the operating system was wiped, leaving a "ghost" activation on Adobe's records.

As you know, Adobe's business model has shifted entirely to Creative Cloud subscriptions. Photoshop CS6 reached its official "end-of-life" quite some time ago; its activation servers have changed over time, and Adobe no longer actively support these versions in the same way as their Creative Cloud subscription models. This means the infrastructure (like activation servers) supporting them might be maintained with less priority or can encounter issues due to aging technology or compatibility problems with newer operating systems and internet security protocols.

Chances are, you might be out of luck. Sorry to be the bearing of bad news

m

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