Unable to Install and Activate CS5 on new Windows 11 PC
I've designed websites for small businesses for the past 15 years and have used Photoshop to support this work. I originally purchased a Photoshop CS4 Extended license then upgraded to CS5 Photoshop a few years later. I have been using the single Photoshop CS5 license for over 10 years and have installed it on many different PC's and on as many as 3 different PC's at any given time, with never any issues. Up until a month ago, all my PC's have been running Windows 10. So because support for Windows 10 is stopping in a few months I thought it would be best to upgrade to Windows 11, at least on my main business computer that supports my website business. Unfortunately, it turned out that this hardware was incompatible with a Windows 11 upgrade so I decided to purchase a new Windows 11 PC from Dell instead. So during the configuration of this new business PC, I started installing and configuring my applications, including Photoshop CS5. Again, there wasn't any problem with this installation. However, because of other issues regarding Windows 11, I had to do a Windows reset that then required me to re-install all my applications again. Unfortunately, when I tried to re-install Photoshop CS5 again, I got the warning that my Photoshop CS5 could not be activated stating that; 1) I had more than 2 installations and 2) I had exceeding the maximum number of installations allowed. I tried deactivating the installation on my old Windows 10 PC but I still got the same warning that stated that I already had more thn 2 active installations. I find this entire problem very frustrating since; 1) I was never made aware of any of these installation limitations, 2) that support for Photoshop was ending, and 3) I had a working installation of Photoshop CS5 on my new PC prior to doing the Windows 11 reset. I read that the CS5 activation servers are still active and that an activation reset would be possible but since there is no longer support for Photoshop CS5 it seems there is no one knowledgeable to do this. Had I been made aware of these activation limitations and end-of-life I could could have made different decisions and could have avoided this problem. And since I mainly use Photoshop now very infrequently and only for support of legacy website designs, it is very impractical to purchase a new license that may only be used a few times a year. So it was suggested that I post my issue here to see if there are any reasonable resolutions to this problem.
