Moving from Microsoft Photoshop Elements Organizer to Adobe Photoshop Elements Organizer

[Per Håkon]

I bought Photoshop Elements 21 from Microsoft Store, and I understand that this is a separate build than the one provided directly from Adobe. The "Microsoft" version of Organizer is rubbish and stops responding during indexing and database backup. Furthermore, Microsoft is not providing updates and patches to their build. I'm now considering buying the Adobe build instead, which is patched regularly. I'm wondering about two things:

Do you experience similar "not responding" issues with the Adobe build of Organizer? 

Is the Organizer database compatible between these two builds? I hope to avoid re-indexing all my photos.

[MichelBParis]

The differences with the 'Store' version are mainly that you are buying directly from Microsoft a product which has been customized to Microsoft requirements. Apart from the legal aspects: Microsoft is the vendor and is responsible for the support of the software with the different pricing and licensing policy, the main differences are linked to installation requirements and updating processes. However, the users features are exactly the same.

That means that if you have many issues now, you'll have the same with the true Adobe version. So, don't hurry to buy it. Don't even download a free trial version without asking here about your precise issues. The updates in the Adobe version are not critical at all and won't help you.

By the way, the Adobe build is not patched regularly. There may be one or two free updates at most.

[Per Håkon]

Thanks. I think I managed to fix my problem. I discovered that there were 5 video files that were missing thumbnails. After removing these files, media analysis indexing was able to complete and backup was working without freezing. These video files plays well with other media players (e.g. VLC), but hangs in Organizer. I have over 60 000 media files, and finding the ones Adobe is not able to tackle is a tedious task. I wish there was a simple error message for that (instead of freezing).