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Noel Carboni
Noel Carboni
Legend
July 5, 2012
Question

Extra Stuff That Adobe Installs with Photoshop CS6

  • July 5, 2012
  • 1 reply
  • 26873 views

Just having gone through a test installation of Photoshop CS6 on a Windows 8 x64 virtual machine, I found it interesting that just after Photoshop CS6 went in Windows itself reported, through the Action Center, that a bunch of ''background'' programs were installed, and would I like to go into msconfig32 and disable them.  In short, even Windows thinks the stuff Adobe installs is excessive and potentially troublesome!

As I prefer AutoRuns to msconfig32, I acutally did go and disable the software which I do not need running, to keep the system lean...  It turns out that I actually AM able to disable just about every ''background'' program that Adobe installed, and Photoshop still works just fine.

Just to be clear, the only Adobe software packages I've installed on this VM are Adobe Reader and Adobe Photoshop CS6.

Here's a list of various modules I have disabled without apparent downside:

Programs started at login by entries in the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run:

  • Adobe ARM (Adobe Reader and Acrobat Manager)
  • AdobeCS6ServiceManager (Adobe CS6 Service Manager)
  • SwitchBoard (SwitchBoard Server (32 bit)

Services started at bootup by entries in the registy key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services:

  • AdobeARMservice (Adobe Acrobat Updater keeps your Adobe software up to date)
  • SwitchBoard (Adobe SwitchBoard)

Task Scheduler Entries

  • \AdobeAAMUpdater-1.0-W8VMRP-NoelC (Adobe Updater Startup Utility)

In the context of a Photoshop-only installation, about the only downside I can see for disabling these things is that since the auto-updaters have been disabled, occasionally I'll need to check for updates manually (e.g., Help - Updates... in the menus, when I hear on the forums that an update has been released).

Many of these things run all the time, from bootup, whether we're using Adobe software or not.  It's no wonder people report that their systems "slow down" over time.

Adobe:  Please consider offering a ''Lean'' or ''Custom'' installation mode in which these things are optional, and provide clear descriptions of what functionality they provide.

Not everyone prefers to give up their system resources for a little extra convenience.

(and no, I'm not interested in posting this ''feature request'' over on Photoshop.com and hoping for votes)

-Noel

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    1 reply

    Alfred Pennyworth
    Alfred Pennyworth
    Participating Frequently
    July 5, 2012

    Excellent post as usual from you Noel.

    I wonder if you could help what could I disable Adobe wise running on a windows 7 Ultimate system? Sorry to hijack this I have a laptop trying out Windows 8 so will give this a go. Thanks

    Gerry

    Noel Carboni
    Noel CarboniAuthor
    Legend
    July 5, 2012

    Thanks.

    I've just looked over my Windows 7 AutoRuns settings, and it's pretty much the same stuff I listed above but in slightly different places.  On this system over time I have installed multiple versions of Photoshop (Ps 6.0, Ps CS4, Ps CS5, and Ps CS6) and disabled the unneded parts as I've gone along.

    Adobe programs I've disabled on Windows 7:

    Programs started at login by entries in the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run:

    • AdobeAAMUpdater-1.0 (Adobe Updater Startup Utility)

     

    Programs started at login by entries in the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVers ion\Run:

    • AdobeCS4ServiceManager (Adobe CS4 Service Manager)
    • AdobeCS5ServiceManager (Adobe CS5 Service Manager)

     

    Shell extensions in registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Classes\AllFileSystemObjects\ShellEx\ContextMenuHandlers:

    • Adobe Drive CS4 (Adobe Drive Menu)

     

    Shell extensions in registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Classes\Directory\Background\ShellEx\ContextMenuHandlers:

    • Adobe Drive CS4 (Adobe Drive Menu)

     

    Task Scheduler Entries

    • \Adobe Flash Player Updater (Adobe Flash Player Update Service 11.2r202)

    Services/Drivers started at bootup by entries in the registy key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services:

    • AdobeARMservice (Adobe Acrobat Updater keeps your Adobe software up to date)
    • AdobeFlashPlayerUpdateSvc (This service keeps your Adobe Flash Player installation up to date with the latest enhancements and security fixes)
    • SwitchBoard (Adobe Switchboard)
    • adfs (Adobe Drive File System Driver)

    Networking layers started in registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\NetworkProvider\Order

    • AdobeDriveCS4_NP (Adobe Drive CS4 Network)

     

    By the way, the AutoRuns tool I mentioned comes from here:  http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963902.aspx

    Keep in mind I don't have the full Creative Suite, just Photoshop, and I am willing to check for updates manually.

    Please understand that fooling with parts of the system like this can be touchy, and you might not want to attempt these kinds of operations unless you're familiar with Windows system management.  That said, Autoruns makes it pretty easy (just uncheck / check a box) to disable things and re-enable them.

    -Noel

    A
    Anonymous
    July 5, 2012

    I know the stuff running in the background grows over time as programs are added.  My problem is that I have no idea what the stuff does, and so I feel I am way out of my league at deleting any of the stuff there.  If I open the task manager there is an extremely long list of stuff (Adobe plus other programs), and I have no idea what it does, or if deleted what would be the effect.

    For the non-geek users are there easy way to feret out this info?  I think for most of us taking each item and doing a web search seems undaunting as we can read the explaination, but would still be uncertain as to whether to delete or not.

    Even with your list above I have no idea what the negatives are (except updater).

    So bottom line for  "custom" installations, for the average user pros and cons of having the "stuff" installed would have to be listed so we could make an infromed choice.

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