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Photoshop only opens in admin mode but then can't drag and drop

Forum|Forum|1 year ago
July 27, 2024
1 reply
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So I'm going around in circles with this issue. I work on mac for work and originally had a mac for personal use - but that's about burned out so have made a switch back after several years to windows (11) just for my personal laptop.

Got around to setting up adobe cc, and opening programs initially was difficult and wouldn't always load up (ps, ai, id, ae). After a search it says to set the program properties (or right click) to open as an administrator. This works and I can then open the program every time. - yay! (even managed to turn off the annoying pop-up)

Anyway, I then go to drag and drop and image from file explorer into a program, and get a stop sign on my cursor preventing me from doing so. Another quick google says the fix is to NOT open Ps etc in admin mode and drag and drop will work. And this is why I'm going around in circles.

Read about admin levels etc, and whether you're an admin or user etc. and how you'd have to be an admin to be able to have the permissions from file explorer to then be able to drag and drop. But my account is the only account on this new pc, automatically the admin because of this - unless I'm missing something here maybe?

The odd time ps managed to open without being in admin mode it did allow me to drag and drop. But then after closing the app, it either then wouldn't open at all again in this way, or show the loading icon for a quick moment and do nothing, or it would open a window but only have the toolbar and sidebar, but would be a white space where the rest of the full interface should be (screenshot of this added).

Just going to file>place every time I need to add something is just long winded with the amount of graphics I produce with my workflow, so am not keen on that just being the workaround for this, especially when this functionality has never been an issue on mac (or previously when I used windows years ago).

Anyone know a fix, or Adobe please can you fix or advise!?

Windows

Sameer K

Community Manager

Hey, @EMBO Design. Welcome to the Photoshop Community. I'll help you figure this out.

It could be a case of a user-account permissions issue. Please check this article to learn more about this:

Before troubleshooting, in the Creative Cloud app, press CTRL + ALT + T (Win) to launch Creative Cloud Troubleshooter, select 'Close Creative Cloud and related processes, ' > and click on Go.

Ensure that the user account has read-write permissions on the following folders:

C:\Program Files\Adobe
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe
C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe
C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Adobe
C:\ProgramData\Adobe
C:\Users\\AppData\Roaming\Adobe
C:\Users\\AppData\Roaming\com.adobe.
C:\Users\\AppData\Local\Adobe
C:\Users\\AppData\LocalLow\Adobe
C:\Users\\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe

Giving permissions to these folders. Windows has more than one way. I can share the simple one. If this does not work, reaching out to Microsoft Support would be the go-to solution for fixing user account permissions.

1) Right-click on the folders shared above and go to Properties

2) On the Security tab, click Edit to change the permissions

3) Select the admin user in the Group or User Names section

4) Put a checkmark on Allow complete control

5) Allow complete control to other users and accounts on PC as well and Click Apply and then OK

Once you have applied the required permissions, ensure that there are no stale preferences in your Photoshop. Go to the location of the preference folder below and rename it to backup.

Windows 10/11: Users/[user name]/AppData/Roaming/Adobe/Adobe Photoshop [version]/Adobe Photoshop [version] Settings
You can press Press the Windows key > Enter 'Run' > Enter %APPDATA%\Adobe
Rename the Adobe Photoshop folder by adding a .old at the end. (Adobe Photoshop 2024 > Rename > Adobe Photoshop 2024. old), You can restore these preferences later if needed.(https://adobe.ly/4860qM9)
Restart the computer.

These changes will give a fresh start to Photoshop as a fresh install. Let me know how it goes.

Thanks!

Sameer K

(Use '@mention' to tag me when you reply)

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