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loki999
Known Participant
October 19, 2026
Question

Photoshop 2026 uninstalled itself without any warning or notice

This happened to me just today; I’m using a Win11 system with the Photoshop icon in the system tray. I noticed it was just a generic page icon, and when I clicked on it I received the following message:

“The item’Photoshop.exe’ that this shortcut refers to has been changed or moved, so this shortcut will no longer work properly.

Do you want to delete the shortcut?”

 

I checked the folder where Photoshop is supposed to be installed and it was pretty much empty; just a couple leftover folders with no settings folder. So, I assume my shortcuts have been deleted along with Photoshop being uninstalled. None of the other applications in Creative Cloud were affected.

I don’t know if this is a bug, or has something to do with the Windows 26h2 update (which I sincerely doubt). I also know other people have been having this happen to them as well, sometimes multiple times. My subscription is paid and I’m logged onto my Adobe account -- I’m wondering at this point what I’m paying for as this is obviously entirely unacceptable. 

Also, my attempts to install it keep failing as well; it’s gets to 45% and fails. I’m also getting a “Progress is slower than usual. Working on resolving issue...” message.

Here’s the log from the error:

 

Exit Code: 184-------------------------------------- Summary -------------------------------------- - 2 fatal error(s), 3 error(s), 3 warnings(s) FATAL: Error (Code = 184) executing in command 'MoveFileCommand' for package: 'AdobePhotoshop27-Core_x64', version:27.11.0.26FATAL: Error occurred in install of package (Name: AdobePhotoshop27-Core_x64 Version: 27.11.0.26). Error code: '184'ERROR: Path:D:\adobeTemp already existsERROR: CopyPrimitiveEx | GetAnyOperationsAborted failed with error: 0ERROR: CopyPrimitiveEx | GetAnyOperationsAborted failed with error: 0WARN: 27.11WARN: Unable to delete file at "D:\Program Files\Adobe Photoshop 2026\AdobeGrowthSDK.dll". Error 5 Access is denied.WARN: Unable to move file at "D:\adobeTemp\ETR2F40.tmp\1\Application\AdobeGrowthSDK.dll" to "D:\Program Files\Adobe Photoshop 2026\AdobeGrowthSDK.dll" Error 32 The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process.. Try setting correct permissions to the specified file/folder or parent folder, so that admin has rights to modify it.-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Needless to say I’m very unimpressed by this; I’ve no idea what Adobe is doing to cause this to happen and I sincerely hope they are working to fix it. I’m going to restart my system and see if that fixes it. I expect much better from Adobe; I’ve never had issues with their products until now. And simply arbitrarily uninstalling Photoshop is absolutely not acceptable by any measure. Vibecoded AI slop? I’m beginning to think so…

 

Does anyone have a solution to this? I’m hoping it won’t uninstall itself again assuming I’m able to reinstall it. I know this has happened to other people multiple times and so I’m not very confidant the reinstall will work long term. I never thought I’d have to say that about Adobe, but here we are.

Thanks.

      6 replies

      Shoukat Interior
      Shoukat Interior
      Participant
      October 21, 2026

      That sounds really frustrating, especially when Photoshop disappears unexpectedly and then the Creative Cloud installer fails repeatedly. I’d suggest checking the Creative Cloud desktop app for any installation errors, restarting Windows, and using Adobe’s official Creative Cloud Cleaner Tool if the normal installation process continues to fail. You can also check Shoukat Interior for additional design inspiration. It may also help to check whether any antivirus or Windows security settings are interfering with the installation.

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      faisu887
      faisu887
      Participating Frequently
      October 21, 2026

      Glad the restart got your reinstall working. For the bigger worry about it happening again, the Creative Cloud desktop app sometimes loses track of installed apps after a Windows update, so signing out and back in can refresh that link. If it ever happens again, running the Creative Cloud Cleaner tool and reinstalling the desktop app usually clears up the root cause. Hope it stays stable from here.

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      loki999Author
      Known Participant
      October 21, 2026

      I just saw other posts about this very thing happening three years ago. Why hasn’t Adobe fixed this issue? Seriously...

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      loki999Author
      Known Participant
      October 19, 2026

      Update: After I restarted my system I was able to reinstall Photoshop. which was good. There were also a couple unexpected things that happened, which were good as well. My actions were all still there as were my recently opened files. I didn’t expect that to happen and so I fully thought I’d be reinstalling those as well, or re-creating them. So, that makes me happy -- Good job, Adobe. But the initial issue still remains as to why Photoshop was uninstalled in the first place and what is Adobe doing to prevent this from happening again?

      I’m guessing the issues I had with the reinstallation happened because I had a couple glitches where my system lost its Internet connection, which may well have messed up Adobe Cloud. If so, that’s fair. Perhaps a component of the installation process got hung and was holding on to the file resources Adobe Cloud needed when the installation started up again. These things happen.

      But, to be fair, I’ve not once ever had an application spontaneously uninstall itself. That’s a new one to be sure.

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        D Fosse
        Community Expert
        D FosseCommunity Expert
        Community Expert
        October 19, 2026

        Photoshop didn’t uninstall itself. There’s no way any application can spontaneously decide to uninstall itself.

        What happened was that the CC desktop app lost the link to Photoshop. In other words, a CC app problem; not a Photoshop problem. We’ve seen a few cases of this lately, so apparently there is a bug in the CC desktop app.

        To fix this, first sign out of the CC app, then sign back in again. This forces the CC app to rescan your system for all installed applications.

        If that doesn’t work, run a repair or full reinstall of the CC app.

        https://helpx.adobe.com/creative-cloud/apps/manage-apps/creative-cloud-desktop-app/uninstall-

        creative-cloud-desktop-app.html

        (Note bullet point # 4: “Select Repair. If the issue is resolved by repairing, you need not uninstall the Creative Cloud desktop app”. )

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          loki999Author
          Known Participant
          October 21, 2026

          Well, all I know is one day Photoshop was there, the next day it wasn’t. So, while Photoshop may not have uninstalled itself, it did, in fact, get uninstalled. And that’s really the point. So, moving forward, how do we prevent this from happening again? Has anyone from Adobe mentioned this or given an update? It is obviously a major issue and I’d very much like for it to not happen again.

           

          Thanks.

           

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