Can't activate Photoshop Elements 24 as error message says it's activated on my old laptop (which I can't access)

Thanks Glenn for your quick reply. I don’t have a “two computers” message, I just get a message that it is installed on another computer, so I can’t install it on this one without disactivating it.

This is basically a product glitch/service problem - I see that support was withdrawn for my product 19 months after I bought it, for some reason. Otherwise I would be able to speak to someone and have the counter reset. If I bought Elements 25 or later I would have support for three years, it seems? Elements 24 is meant to be a perpetual license, so certainly not shorter than that!

In the UK, it’s not really a matter of being lucky or not, we have the Consumer Rights Act which applies to digital download, and products are meant to function for a certain period of time, or should be repaired or replaced. I guess I will need to contact Trading Standards about getting a refund.

Activated devices in your account stuff only applies to things you subscribe to- those found in the creative cloud family- Adobe Photoshop, and Adobe Illustrator for example.   Activated devices does not apply to PSE 2024, any version of PSE actually. 

The is a difference between it being used on another laptop and getting the “It’s installed on two computers already” message.   If in your case you get the “two computer” message you are basically out of luck and can forget about using pse 2024,

Whenever you need to reinstall the program to move it to another computer you need to log out of the editor first- and many users simply don’t do that.

Not logging out, and not having access to an old computer anymore happens to users.

By not logging out of the editor first you used up one of two installations.