Keeping prefs during uninstall seems to prevent uninstall of CC, as required to migrate to new Mac

[Wienke]

I'm attempting to redo migration from an old Silicon Mac to an M4 Mac, and I understand that I should first uninstall all Adobe apps from the old Mac prior to running a last Time Machine backup.

So I used the CC app on the old Mac to uninstall Photoshop, Lightroom, and Bridge, and CC ended up showing no apps installed--but of course I had chosen with each app to KEEP the prefs, hoping to migrate those and then do fresh installs that would pick them up.

But the step of keeping the prefs seems to prevent running the "Uninstall Creative Cloud": it complains that I still have CC apps installed.

I'm stuck.

[creative explorer · Accepted solution]

@Wienke ohh, have you tried Adobe dedicated tool specifically for cleaning up Creative Cloud installations. This is the most reliable way to remove all remnants of Adobe software, including those pesky preferences that are causing your issue. 

After using the Cleaner Tool, you should now be able to uninstall the Creative Cloud desktop app without any issues. Once you've completely uninstalled everything Adobe-related, then proceed with your Time Machine backup. This will ensure you're migrating a clean system without any potentially conflicting Adobe files. 

On your new M4 Mac, install the Creative Cloud desktop app and then install your Adobe applications from scratch. This will give you the cleanest possible installation and avoid any potential issues that might arise from migrating old preferences.

With preferences, personally, I would rather start fresh and create a new set of preferences. New machine. New prefs (my two cents worth!).

[Wienke]

Since there’s an Adobe app that specifically says it is for uninstalling CC, I assumed it was the thing to use.
Well, now it looks like I need to reinstall everything so I can export all the brushes and actions (as D Fosse highlights). And after that it sounds like I should run this cleaner tool, maybe do a second export in case the first was no good, and then uninstall everything. And then redo the backup, redo the hours long migration, install all the Adobe apps, bring in all their exports, and restore every single custom keyboard shortcut.
And somewhere in the middle, I’m going to have to wipe out all my painfully maintained syncing from Lightroom, which I was using as a remote backup. I was pretty bummed to find out that that was a waste of time, since Adobe is discontinuing it, and yet demands an extra “on your computer” step for every file save. (Yes, I suppose that cloud is a separate service, but I would not feel confident using Adobe for it now.)
Thank you very much for telling me about the special tool. Without that tip, I was stuck with two useless computers!
I’ll come back and mark this answer as the solution after I’ve done all this, wouldn’t want to jinx anything with a premature thumbs up.

[Wienke]

@creative explorer
Happily I screwed up and backed up the prefs but did not actually delete them, because here they all are, including all the workspaces, which need to be replaced—but not by scratch. Many thanks for pointing me to the Cleaner tool, which made it possible to remove the apps themselves from the old Mac and its Time Machine backup, so that fresh installs could be made on the new Mac.
Problem solved. Thank you!

[D Fosse]

There is absolutely no reason to uninstall anything!

All you need to do is sign out.

The preferences aren't just your own user settings, it's the whole configuration of the application including lots of hidden parameters. I would not attempt to migrate even if possible.

The exception is actions and brushes that you cannot easily remake. Save those out on the old machine and reload on the new. Even so, you may need to go over actions step by step and possibly re-record some steps.

Preferences are prone to corruption because they are rewritten on every application exit. Errors accumulate. Taking the ten minutes to set up fresh preferences is a good investment in trouble-free operation.

[Wienke]

Thanks for taking the time to help.
Ironically, I preferred simply to deactivate the whole suite from the web rather than launch each app in order to sign out—because it takes an eternity to launch them on this old computer! I had no intention of using Adobe’s stuff on both computers, was looking forward to being able to resurrect this old one to its reasonably paced Adobe-less state.
But I don’t understand how I could have accomplished a clean Time Machine migration without uninstalling Adobe. And I do need to include Applications in the migration, since I have other apps that it would not be fun to re-collect individually.
I do appreciate the reminder to make provision for the actions; I knew I would need the ABRs, but I also have a few actions that were tricky to set up.
And I get your point that prefs are messy. I’m well resigned to hours ahead.

[D Fosse]

You just open the CC app and sign out.

Done.

[Wienke]

@D Fosse
Thanks for attempting to spare me all this extra effort. The problem, though, was that my initial migration didn’t take because I was going from Mac Intel to Mac Silicon (my post was backwards), and so when I attempted to launch the migrated Adobe apps, I kept getting dialogues that I had to install “Rosetta”; the migrated installations were not compatible with the new Mac.
I first checked for other posts about the problem, and the advice was rather breezily to make fresh installs rather than migrating the apps. Hence the migration redo. I had to remove the apps from the old Mac in order to make a migratable Time Machine backup.
The Cleaner tool finally made removal possible, and I’ve managed to get set up.
What a job it was, though. I guess if you change computers every year, you get smooth at this. Since I keep mine almost till updates are discontinued, I feel like an ant climbing a mountain.
I do take your point that you can sign out from the CC app, rather than launching the individual apps. And I suppose you were assuming that I would simply exclude all applications from the migration. But I had other apps that I wanted to migrate. And the old computer is simply too slow for Adobe. This is a migration without a return.
Thanks again.

[D Fosse]

OK, understood.

I get that it's very convenient to just "move" the whole computer over to new hardware, and I can see the temptation. More often than not, however, you're just exchanging one set of problems with another. As you found out 😉

Hope you get all this sorted!

[ExUSA]

Just for future reference, you can use Migration Assistant and not move applications over from the old computer.

[Wienke]

Yes, but then every outside app would need a fresh install. It's all or nothing.

You can use a Time Machine backup to restore a discrete choice, but that wouldn't work for apps.

A third possibility is to do a total fresh install of an established computer setup, a year or two in, rather than attempting this along with the hardware issues involved in setting up a new computer.