CS2 may simply think I am in the 30 day trial-use period (even though I entered my serial number and it accepted it) and will boot me out again in a month. However, this time around I cannot find any references to 'Macrovision' or 'SafeCast' anywhere in my registry or on my hard drive so I am concerned that things my not really be fixed after all. Decline the Adobe web site registration (I had already registered and you probably have, too).

This time be sure to enter some text for 'Organization' as well as your user name and serial number. Reboot Windows to reset the registry, then install Photoshop CS2 again. This was the location where my tech support person expected to find the licensing files but mine were only in the registry – I had no Macrovision folder in the 'Application Data' folder. Look in 'C:Documents and Settings/All Users/Application Data/Macrovision' and delete that 'Macrovision' folder (along with all its contents and subfolders) as well. Open Windows Explorer (or your whatever application you use to view and manage the folders on your hard drive). Make sure you delete the folder named 'Macrovision' and NOT 'Macromedia' (if you have that one, too). It contains a subfolder 'SafeCast' which contains a *.dat file which is supposed to record the PhotoshopCS2 license info. Click the '+' box next to 'SOFTWARE' to list all its folders then delete the folder named 'Macrovision' that you find there. (I did not do the steps in that tech document, by the way, only the following.)Įdit your PC registry with regedit and locate HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE. It was the following step that cleared it out and also stopped the error. In my case there was still a PhotoshopCS2 entry when I opened the 'Add/Remove' programs window even after I had uninstalled it. That document refers to the manual removal of Photoshop 8, but I was told you can apply it to CS2 (which is version 9).

You may have to follow the steps in Adobe Technical Document 330507 (search for that number at the web site) to make sure you have completely removed the application. Un-install PhotoshopCS2 without saving your preferences there is a chance that your preference files have been corrupted. This is the solution that has so far worked for me:

Photoshop cs2 serial number