How to uninstall Adobe Creative Suite 2.0 applications manually

24.05.2007 · Annoyances

If you have installed Adobe Creative Suite 2.0 it can be impossible to uninstall Suite applications due to installer bug. Setup.exe is crashing every time I’m trying to manage my Adobe Creative Suite installation. It’s big annoyance, because Windows won’t allow to uninstall individual suite applications, telling that it must be managed via Suite installer.

Good idea is to scan your system with good Antispyware / antivirus software and fix system errors with this tool, as it will save you from many annoying problems.

Since Suite application installers comes as standard MSI-type installers, I found a way to bypass Suite installer and uninstall individual applications manually.

You need Adobe Creative Suite 2.0 install disk. There must be folders like:
Adobe Creative Suite 2.0\Adobe Acrobat 7.0\
Adobe Creative Suite 2.0\Adobe Bridge Services\
Adobe Creative Suite 2.0\Adobe GoLive CS2\
Adobe Creative Suite 2.0\Adobe Illustrator CS2\
Adobe Creative Suite 2.0\Adobe InDesign CS2\
Adobe Creative Suite 2.0\Adobe Photoshop CS2\
Adobe Creative Suite 2.0\Adobe Version Cue CS2\
etc.

To uninstall individual application manually, go to the desired application installer folder. If you need to remove “Adobe GoLive CS2″, navigate to “Adobe Creative Suite 2.0\Adobe GoLive CS2″ folder on your install disk. You must see Adobe GoLive CS2.msi file. Right-click on this file, and choose Uninstall from popup menu. Windows should start uninstall procedure.

To perform needed actions from shell console, use msiexec with /x switch (assuming “E:\” is you install disk):msiexec /x "E:\Adobe Creative Suite 2.0\Adobe GoLive CS2\Adobe GoLive CS2.msi"

More msiexec command-line switches:

msiexec /Option <Required Parameter> [Optional Parameter]

Install Options
    </package | /i> <Product.msi>
        Installs or configures a product
    /a <Product.msi>
        Administrative install - Installs a product on the network
    /j<u|m> <Product.msi> [/t <Transform List>] [/g <Language ID>]
        Advertises a product - m to all users, u to current user
    </uninstall | /x> <Product.msi | ProductCode>
        Uninstalls the product
Display Options
    /quiet
        Quiet mode, no user interaction
    /passive
        Unattended mode - progress bar only
    /q[n|b|r|f]
        Sets user interface level
        n - No UI
        b - Basic UI
        r - Reduced UI
        f - Full UI (default)
    /help
        Help information
Restart Options
    /norestart
        Do not restart after the installation is complete
    /promptrestart
        Prompts the user for restart if necessary
    /forcerestart
        Always restart the computer after installation
Logging Options
    /l[i|w|e|a|r|u|c|m|o|p|v|x|+|!|*] <LogFile>
        i - Status messages
        w - Nonfatal warnings
        e - All error messages
        a - Start up of actions
        r - Action-specific records
        u - User requests
        c - Initial UI parameters
        m - Out-of-memory or fatal exit information
        o - Out-of-disk-space messages
        p - Terminal properties
        v - Verbose output
        x - Extra debugging information
        + - Append to existing log file
        ! - Flush each line to the log
        * - Log all information, except for v and x options
    /log <LogFile>
        Equivalent of /l* <LogFile>
Update Options
    /update <Update1.msp>[;Update2.msp]
        Applies update(s)
    /uninstall <PatchCodeGuid>[;Update2.msp] /package <Product.msi | ProductCode>
        Remove update(s) for a product
Repair Options
    /f[p|e|c|m|s|o|d|a|u|v] <Product.msi | ProductCode>
        Repairs a product
        p - only if file is missing
        o - if file is missing or an older version is installed (default)
        e - if file is missing or an equal or older version is installed
        d - if file is missing or a different version is installed
        c - if file is missing or checksum does not match the calculated value
        a - forces all files to be reinstalled
        u - all required user-specific registry entries (default)
        m - all required computer-specific registry entries (default)
        s - all existing shortcuts (default)
        v - runs from source and recaches local package
Setting Public Properties
    [PROPERTY=PropertyValue]

Have a good day and healthy system.