PSE 14 (under Windows 10) fails on installation

lusakajoe  wrote PSE 14 Organiser won't open after clean installation on new hard disk Bought new Windows 10 laptop September 2016 (Asus X556U, 12Gb RAM, 2Tb hard disk) Using PSE14 to manage and edit large catalog (more than 100,000 photos, catalog file 1.2gb) Hard disk failed recently, managed to get recovery and copied all data including pictures off Hard disk Installed new hard disk (smaller, 500GB) and reinstalled Windows 10 and updated to anniversary edition (1607) with no issues Reinstalled PSE14 by downloading from Adobe site. Installation appears to go OK, until ,.... Open PSE14, choose Organiser, then the app opens the catalog manager dialog box and says no default catalog

At that point, restart your computer and start the organizer while keeping the shift key pressed. Wait for a message offering the option to create a new catalog. Does the organizer crash?

It happens that simply doing that allows using the catalog manager to switch to your recovered old catalog.

But anyway, even if you have restored your photo file library tree in the same drive letter and if you have made a copy of your old catalog folder somewhere (must not be on the default location), in the best case you should see all your thumbnails showing the 'missing' (disconnected) question mark. Tha's because a new disk has a different internal serial number. Since you did not use the recommended backup and restore process, the links have not been updated to recognize the new drive.

If trying to start with a new catalog does not work, I'd suspect a permission issue on the default catalog folder.

lusakajoe  wrote If any part of the answer is to uninstall PSE14 and start again, please advise how to completely remove PSE14 (just using windows uninstall doesn't completely remove all files).

Use the Creative Cloud Cleaner Tool to solve installation problems

Works on PSE as well.