How to locate hidden files before removing Creative Suite
My Dear Friends,

I have to re-install Creative Suite onto my laptop, but the installer tells me that I first have to un-install an already-installed existing copy. Even if I un-install the existing of all Adobe products--including Creative Suite, and Creative Cloud Bridge--the installer continues to tell me that Indesign and Illustrator are still installed, and must be removed first. I have used the built-in un-installer, Adobe Creative Cloud Cleaner Tool, deeper-registry-cleaning un-install utilites such as Revo Uninstaller, and done a manual search-and-delete of any file containing the word “Adobe,” and every program or utility even produced by Adobe, and always followed by a re-boot. Even so, upon running the new installation, I am greeted with the same message from the same installer, telling me that Indesign and Illustrator are still “detected” somewhere on the computer, and must be removed first. At that point, the installer WILL allow me to re-install Photoshop, Bridge, Acrobat, etc., but not Indesign or Illustrator; those options are “grayed out,” and the check-boxes cannot be checked.

So I think that my only questions are these: (1) where are these mysterious HIDDEN files on the computer that keep causing the installer to mistakenly believe that Indesign and Illustrator are still on my computer somewhere and that they must be un-installed before I can do a fresh re-install of the whole Suite? and (2) How can I delete those hidden files?

BACKGROUND:

Creative Suite CS2 had been working fine on my Dell laptop running Windows 10 Pro with 16 GB RAM, for over one year. Now, one year later, on October 16, 2023, I accidentally installed an unrelated utility that was meant for Windows 7, and, upon seeing that it was causing display problems, but could not be un-installed per se, I did a “system-restore,” to return the state of the entire Windows Pro system to what it was on the previous day, October 15. The System Restore window warned me that Firefox and Creative Suite might possibly not function correctly upon restoring the system, but I took a chance. After that, the whole computer was working fine again, but Indesign was not.

Instead, Indesign would ask me for a serial number, as if I had just re-installed it. So, I put the same serial number as one year earlier, and it was accepted, but the program still did not open. I repeated the process multiple times, and even tried other serial numbers, which gave me the message, “invalid serial number.” The right serial number was always accepted, and the wrong numbers appeared as "invalid," but the program would never launch in either case.

Curious as to whether other components of CS were still working, I opened Photoshop, Illustrator, Acrobat, Bridge, Designer, Version Cue, etc., and all of them worked normally.

After hours of trying different things to get Indesign to work, I decided to re-install. i ran the same Creative Suite "special installer" that I had downloaded from the Adobe website, years ago, and used many times, (WHICH NEVER REQUIRES ACTIVATION), and the installer, itself, would then ask my name and serial number, of course, and then would take me to the next screen for choosing my language preferences, but then, to the next screen that was warning me that a full re-installation of CS2 could not take place without my first deleting an “existing” installation of Indesign and Illustrator, from my system, even though I had already un-installed them by that time. Curiously, it WOULD allow me to re-install Photoshop, Acrobat, Bridge, but not Illustrator or Indesign.

(1) Where are these mysterious HIDDEN files on the computer that keep causing the installer to mistakenly believe that Indesign and Illustrator are still on my computer somewhere and that they must be un-installed before I can do a fresh re-install of the whole Suite? and (2) How can I delete those hidden files?

Thank you for your help!

Erik