How to find where my product is registered

[Louis23444835pej8]

My fathere-in-law had been using Photoshop for many years, starting with elements 9 and upgraded on a regular basis. Unfortunately  he recently passed away and I want to move his photoshop and his catalog to a new computer. I tried to log in using his email but Adobe says that email doesn't have an account. I have his latest CD's for installation, but without finding where his product is registered  i can't install it on my computer. I created an account using his email and installed creative cloud on his pc, but it still doesn't recognize his products. Any suggestions on where I go from here would be appreciated. 

[jane-e]

My fathere-in-law had been using Photoshop for many years, starting with elements 9 and upgraded on a regular basis.

By @Louis23444835pej8

Photoshop and Photoshop Elements are two different applications. Please confirm which you are using. 

Jane

[Louis23444835pej8]

He is using photoshop elements and premiere elements 

[jane-e]

@Louis23444835pej8 

Please tell us what versions of OS and PSE your father had.

Your post has been moved to the Photoshop Elements forum. The Experts there will know if his license can be transferred to you.

Jane

[Louis23444835pej8]

He was running elements 15 on his windows 10 laptop. It is pretty slow and I would prefer to move it to my windows 11 pc. It is much faster. Any help would be appreciated. He had a huge number of old pictures that I really don't want to lose.

[Glenn 8675309]

Losing images has nothing to do with Photoshop elements.

Your Father in Laws program?  That is bascially the end of the discussion.   If you are the  executor of the estate- you are looking at a process that will take weeks, even months.   

I highly recommend you spend the money and get the latest version for $99 and forget about pse 2015.  Save your time, frustration, and troubles in deealing with saoftware that is 10 years old.

For older, perpetual versions of Adobe software (such as Creative Suite 6 and earlier), the license may be transferred, but it requires cooperation from both the estate and the new user. 

• Submit a transfer form. Both the transferor (the deceased's estate) and the recipient (the new user) must complete and submit a "Transfer of License" form to Adobe.
• Registered serial number. The software's serial number must have been registered to the deceased's Adobe account before the transfer can be processed.
• Deactivate the software. You may need to deactivate the software on all computers associated with the original owner. If the computer is no longer accessible, you will need to contact Adobe support to reset the activation count.
• Processing time. The process can take several weeks for Adobe to complete. 

How to initiate a request with Adobe

To start the process for either subscription cancellations or perpetual license transfers, follow these general steps:

1. Gather the necessary documents, including the account holder's email address and legal proof of their passing and your authority to act on their behalf.
2. Use the online privacy form. Go to Adobe's privacy inquiry form and select "Cancel someone else's subscription due to their death or incapacitation".
3. Contact customer support. If you have any trouble using the online form, you can contact Adobe customer care directly through their secure chat session for assistance. 

MY RECOMENDATION: 
Yank the hard drive out of the old computer, recycle what's left,  use a usb dongle (they come with a power supply) connect the old drive,  and you don't even have to open your computer case, and just copy everything over, everything, and then start deleting (Not uninstalling, but deleting), keeping the images of course.   

  

[Louis23444835pej8]

Thanks, I don't mind spending the money for a new version. I have taken a full backup from inside essentials, including images and the catalog. Is the restore a straightforward process?

[Glenn 8675309]

No.  For one major reason:  The location of the files has changed.      The extension for an organizer catalog is not a single file type but is a database file, most commonly the .psedb file for Adobe Photoshop Elements Organizer-- all that means is that you simply can't copy a catalogue from one version to another with having missing files.

Think of a PSE catalogue as a  old school card catalogue in a library- one card per image- that card containing informations of the image, including the location of the image.

Not really sure about exactly you are calling "essentials"-- photoshop vs photoshop elements.   It that backup was done on your father in laws old computer, while using PSE's organizer, there may be A CHANCE, a small one, of recovering data you might like to see.

If  you made the backup using backup software- then you better get some orange juice and bacon: you're toast. 

[Louis23444835pej8]

I think I can explain this again to hopefully get a helpful response. 

I did a full backup using the feature in photoshop elements. Under the file menu there is an option to do a full catalog back, which will also back up all of the media files as well.  I saved the backup to an external hard drive. 

I assume that Adobe would provide a way to restore all of this information on to a new system. If you can't,  then the backup feature is useless.

My question is:

Before I buy the latest version I want to be sure that it has an option to restore an older catalog. It it irrelevant to me where Adobe puts the catalog and the media files as long as everything works after the restore.

I want all of my files restored to my windows 11 computer and not put on the cloud.

Can anyone definitively answer this question?

[Louis23444835pej8]

The good news is that I installed Photoshop Elements 2026 and I was able to restore the Elements 15 catalog and all of the media from the backup I made to my external hard drive.  Everything seems to fine except the captions. They don't appear to have transferred over. It sounds like there is a compatibility issue with the way they were created. If anyone has any suggestions please let me know. Thanks for everyone's help so far.