OS Monterey 12.1 and CS4 [CS4 IS DEAD, & CAN'T BE ACTIVATED]

[Peter22659351pijq]

I use photoshop cs4 and adobe acrobat pro but they are not compatible now with OS Monterey 12.1

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS · Accepted solution]

Monterey does not support 32-bit. (I'm assuming your Acrobat Pro is as old as your Photoshop.)

Your choices are to stay with an OS that works with your software (if that's even possible) or to upgrade your software. 

[littlet14100498]

Yes , do no argue with people who say "I'm sorry to be the one to say this but loyal customers purchase upgrades. " I have been  customer with verified purchases though nothing was added but cost. Get rid of  couple butons, call it a different nme it is still  he same PSD you remember back at the original. 16 bit 32 bit 64 bit . An add on to mke it work within the hire bit realm would  shu off he subscripion slavery. Montery hs given me a laptop I use for one app the  cost of  couple grnd nd laptops I can't upgrade because I will lose those pps. Delightful. 

[Joseph D26495511k97a]

Amazing, I raised this issue on other discussions yesterday and the Adobe police locked those discussions.

The lie is CS5 and CS6 offered 64bit options.  

What Abobe has been purposely lazy is not adaptiong the installer from 32bit, so you cannot install a 64 bit version!!!

I don't know what is more pathetic, Adobe trying to fleece its customer base or the customer service people that run out as apologists for Adobe's horrific customer relationship.

Fortunately I own legacy versions which work on later Windows versions (up through Windows 11).

One of the Mac alternatives is to invest in a virtual machine like Parallels and Windows 10/11 and install CS5 or CS6 on the virtual machine on the mac.  

I rather spend my cash investing in software that I own than burn my money buying the same  services for a second time from Adobe.

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

CS5 is about 12 years old; CS6 is about 11 years old. In computer and software terms, that is ancient. 

How long should a software company (Adobe, Microsoft, etc.) be required to update old software on a new OS?

[littlet14100498]

Why does it matter how old it is?  Apple kept  a OS9 enviornment for years as it transitoned to OSX  realizing that it was abusive to expect users to spend thousands on buying all new software every time the system changed. Unless you needs CS6  to do something radically different in Monteray there is no point to changing it. We have become accustomed to rich companies trying to extract as much money for the very same software. In Monteray I no longer use Adobe, I use Affinity , permanant licence, no subscription, no constant changes and no Adobe hack attacking my legal software and illegally monitering me. As I have 6 computers all but one has preMonteray  software. One is still running Snow Leopard and connects seamlessly to the OSX network. 

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

Following your argument, Apple should be the one keeping the backwards usability active, not Adobe (or other software developers). This is not the first time Apple has done this.

The parent company of Affinity software, Serif, is not guilt free either. They dumped all the users of the Windows-only Serif software and offered no upgrade path to the current Affinity software. 

[littlet14100498]

Apple did it because it was not insenstive to the cost  operating systems impose and aware that developers want to do as little as possible while reaping maximum benifit. Eg calling minor upgrades called full upgrades at a cost of 600 plus dollars. Apple did it for the developers, not the customers as most would have just switched to other software, like I just did. Apple is no longer the slave of developers with limited companies developing apps. 

No ,Serif  didn't dump the users, they dumped their entire code and restarted the entire company at a huge risk to themselves. Unlike Adobe (ex Apple employees) 

"We started out in 1987 developing creative software for Windows and built up a decent suite of apps over a 20-year period. But there were problems. Apart from these legacy apps being locked into Windows, they were becoming bloated, hard to maintain and the core foundation of them was not built with consideration of the latest developments in hardware.

So, we decided to start again. We threw all that old code away and began development of the Affinity range from scratch. It was a big gamble and turned into a massive project - it took the best part of 5 years from writing the first line of code to releasing Affinity Designer, our first Affinity app, in October 2014."

You are comparing a software that had become outdated and unusable in a crowded market  to one that still functions even  out of that environment. There were tons of apps that Affinity had to compete with in a bloated Windows market. They were failing, not the market leader like PS, 

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

I assume by the $600, you are referring to the subscription cost? You can't compare that with Apple--who makes billions off of hardware sales. The OS is to support the hardware sales.

Regarding Serif--thanks, I already read their website info. But you missed my point: there was no upgrade path offered to loyal customers. 

[TheDigitalDog]

Amazing, I raised this issue on other discussions yesterday and the Adobe police locked those discussions.

The lie is CS5 and CS6 offered 64bit options.  

By @Joseph D26495511k97a

The truth is, they run 64-bit but the installers are not, which is an issue if you need to install them and you have hardware that can't boot into an older OS that can handle them.

If you have such a situation, take your beef to Apple. 

FWIW, I have 'owned' a copy (license) of Photoshop since version 1.0.7, and very few versions I still have can run today on my newest Mac/OS but can and still run on older hardware I've archived for this purpose. If you insist on updating your hardware and OS, that's your choice, and what older software can't run any longer doesn't run by your own doing! 

No one forces you to use modern versions of any software and complaining about this doesn't solve the issue. 

[littlet14100498]

"I have 'owned' a copy (license) of Photoshop since version 1.0.7,"

Yeah, I still have the CDs . And ? 

"If you insist on updating your hardware"

Insist?! You see this as a one software OS ? 

"No one forces you to use modern versions of any software"

Have you not been using computers very long? I work for companies like WB, they pay for subscriptions so there isn't a single version I am not aware of or what they can or could do.  When they started changing the software to work with multicore processors. 

"complaining about this doesn't solve the issue. "

That is exactly what ends up solving it Blue Line. Companies don't fix things because of praise. 

"take your beef to Apple. "

Apple doesn't need to compensate for lazy developers any more. Users don't need to install  Big Brothers badly written viruses that invalidate genuine software. 

Written on a 2012 Mac Pro 12 core upgraded to 3.4GHZ with 6 SSD drives one in PCIX RAID 3 card by a 40 year professional artist.

[TheDigitalDog]

"I have 'owned' a copy (license) of Photoshop since version 1.0.7,"

Yeah, I still have the CDs . And ? 

By @littlet14100498

No, you don't. Have you not used Photohshop for very long?

No such versions came on a CD (floppies only), including Photoshop 2.5. 

Photoshop 2.5 Floppies

I have do a CD for Photoshop 4, but that is moot (and accurate). 

And... Try installing those old versions on a machine that can run the version under discussion here: CS5 and CS6. You can't. 

"Have you not been using computers very long?

By @littlet14100498

 Only since 1988. And? 

Apple doesn't need to compensate for lazy developers any more.

By @littlet14100498

"All generalizations are false, including this one." -Mark Twain

So all that is needeed is a 64 bit installer.

By @littlet14100498

Care to build one? Or an installer that can install and then run a version of Photoshop (2.5) that was designed for Motorola processors? Good luck. Let us know when that's accomplished. 

So got anything to post to help the OP ("photoshop cs4 adobe acrobat pro but they are not compatible now with OS Monterey 12.1").

Such as: Update your software for Monterey, or downgrade your OS/Hardware so they can run. Simple, factual. Correct answers provided. End of story.

[gener7 · Accepted solution]

Photoshop CS4-CS6 does have a 64 bit mode but support components such as the installer are 32-bit, so it's been out of the MacOS game since Catalina 10.15

[littlet14100498]

So all that is needeed is a 64 bit installer. 

[John Waller]

Which will never happen.

[gener7 · Accepted solution]

I was just being breif. There are other problems:

"That’s right, even if an application is 64-bit, that is not nearly enough to qualify it for Catalina and Big Sur. Apple also requires fundamental changes in how an application handles installation, security, privacy, and access to system files, because of the exact hacker threat you mentioned, so a quick 64-bit update would not have been enough anyway." Conrad C.

It's in this thread that has some good points.

https://community.adobe.com/t5/photoshop-ecosystem-discussions/photoshop-cs6-not-opening-in-big-sur-...

CS6 is no longer sold or supported. So no updates and it's not going to be retooled for newer MacOS systems. About your only chance is to go Windows if you can get a version for that platform.