New Adobe CC Update UNINSTALLS previous versions by default; How to keep them

[Michael Szalapski]

This is useful information, folks! I keep my old versions around.

Anyone else annoyed that they defaulted it to remove your stuff and hid the option for it under an “advanced” section?

– The Great Szalam
(The ‘Great’ stands for ‘Not So Great, in fact, Extremely Humble’)

No trees were harmed in the creation of this message, but several thousand electrons were mildly inconvenienced.

[Michael Szalapski]

I know it wasn’t the guys on the After Effects team. They would never suggest something like this. I’m really, really surprised corporate agreed to do this though. The “IT TOOK ALL MY STUFF AWAY!” buzz is going to kill all the excitement it truly deserves. Photoshop, After Effects, and Premiere all have some SMASHING new features.
And I LOVE some of their mobile apps. Shape and Hue are both super-handy.

– The Great Szalam
(The ‘Great’ stands for ‘Not So Great, in fact, Extremely Humble’)

No trees were harmed in the creation of this message, but several thousand electrons were mildly inconvenienced.

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Hey Dave,

CHEER UP! You got some new toys to play with – why all the negative postings across the forums(s)?

Let’s hear what you like about it, rather than stabbing away at those “executives” least likely to read posts on the COW… 😉

All the Best
Mads

@madsvid, London, UK
Check out my other hangouts:
Twitter: @madsvid
https://mads-thinkingoutloud.blogspot.co.uk

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Hey Dave,

I understand all of that. But on the day where some people may be really excited about getting some new tools that will improve our lives and maybe help even make our productions look better: You are deciding to take a proverbial verbal dump on the rest of us – and that you have done with every single COW post that I have seen on the subject.

Why not give it a rest for at least 24 hours…?

Or at least used the designated forum for unhappy CC people to do it in?

All the Best
Mads

@madsvid, London, UK
Check out my other hangouts:
Twitter: @madsvid
https://mads-thinkingoutloud.blogspot.co.uk

[Walter Soyka]

In fairness, for a lot (most?) other applications, updates always install over existing versions, without the option to run different versions side-by-side.

My Adobe application folder, which contains many back versions of many applications, is 39.7 GB big. For all we know, Adobe is being responsive to users complaining that old Adobe apps they don’t use aren’t being removed when they update, or not understanding why they have more and more different versions installed. Laptops the last couple years have actually moved backwards in storage capacity as mechanical hard drives have given way to solid state storage, so the assumption that you can take as much install space as you want may no longer be valid.

Also, these versions are all still available to Creative Cloud subscribers, so these previous versions can be re-installed at any time, even if the update uninstalled them for you.

I’ve called this new update behavior out here as a public service announcement for two reasons:

1) It’s a change from how the previous CC updates worked.

2) I think a lot of Ae users in particular will want to keep the old install process, because I think it’s best for now to use Ae 13.5 side-by-side with 13.2.

Ae CC 2015 (13.5) shows the first steps with some really big under-the-hood changes in Ae. In my opinion, 13.5 is the most important release since CS5 took Ae 64-bit. I see that this update may look “boring” on paper, but I consider it a foundational update that’s critical for the future of Ae. I see Ae CC 2015 (13.5) as offering some major steps forward, but also a couple of steps back.

I’ll elaborate if you’re interested, but bottom line, I’m working in 13.5 because I want those interactivity improvements. I’m rendering in 13.2 because I want the old multiprocessing workflow.

Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive   |   RenderBreak [blog]   |   Profile [LinkedIn]

[Michael Szalapski]

[Walter Soyka] “Ae CC 2015 (13.5) shows the first steps with some really big under-the-hood changes in Ae. In my opinion, 13.5 is the most important release since CS5 took Ae 64-bit. I see that this update may look “boring” on paper, but I consider it a foundational update that’s critical for the future of Ae.”
I couldn’t agree more. I’m very excited for this release and the release to come whose ground it is breaking. 🙂

– The Great Szalam
(The ‘Great’ stands for ‘Not So Great, in fact, Extremely Humble’)

No trees were harmed in the creation of this message, but several thousand electrons were mildly inconvenienced.

[Daniel Waldron]

Great points. The fact that you can install several versions back if you need to really makes this a non-issue. At least when I installed it last night, I thought it made clear it was over-writing the previous version and gave an option not to do so.

[Darby Edelen]

[Walter Soyka] “In fairness, for a lot (most?) other applications, updates always install over existing versions, without the option to run different versions side-by-side.”

In my experience this may be true of dot updates but not major releases. C4D R16 doesn’t replace R15. Maya 2016 doesn’t replace Maya 2015. Nuke 9.0v5 doesn’t replace 9.0v4. Well, I suppose that’s even less than a dot update, but you get the idea. Seeing as this is technically 13.5 I suppose Adobe aren’t breaking the code of conduct…

but…

What really shocked me was that CC 2015 will also remove previous versions of Creative Suite from the computer including CS6, CS5, etc. I don’t know where the cutline is and that just adds to my frustration with this change.

[Walter Soyka] “Also, these versions are all still available to Creative Cloud subscribers, so these previous versions can be re-installed at any time, even if the update uninstalled them for you.
“

Is this true of non-CC versions as well? Can I install any CS version that my adobe account is licensed for? I’m too scared to uninstall CS6 to find out. Perhaps I can stretch my google muscle and see if anyone on the interwebs has an answer.

Darby Edelen

[Daniel Waldron]

Only CS6 is included with CC. Previous CS versions are not.