24.03.2009.
Cleaning all CS4 traces from your PC - manually.
I got two e-mails from guys who stated their CS4 apps still reported an expired key even after they used BoostSpeed (posted below) to clean the PC. From my experience so far, this can be due to three reasons:
1. Not using a decent firewall and blocking all Adobe components (even during setup) from accessing the internet.
2. The keygen is outdated in which case the one I posted below should work.
3. Adobe still managed to squeeze some entries in somewhere where the cleaner didn't find them.
There are two main steps you should try now.
First and foremost, related to the previous post, try setting your time back into December 2008 or so. Now try running the application. If it works, follow steps mentioned in the previous post.
Secondly, if the above doesn't yield any results, go to Start - Run and type regedit. Press Enter and once the Registry Editor opens, punch F3 to open the Find dialog. Enter Adobe into the field and once it finds an entry containing the word Adobe, delete that entry. If the folder containing the entry also has the word adobe, delete it as well, regardless of any other files inside. If the folder is empty after deleting the entry, also delete it. Punch F3 to jump to the next "Adobe" value, and repeat. Do this until you have no more results searching, and then change the keyword to "photoshop". Rinse and repeat for every single adobe app you may have ever installed. Once you clean them all out, that ought to do it. Run registry cleaner once again so it can clean up after you, restart the PC maybe even, and try reinstalling the apps you were trying to install before, but, again, I can't stress the importance of having a decent restrictive firewall installed enough. Use ZoneAlarm or something equally powerful (some users say kaspersky does a decent job) and BLOCK everything from adobe that tries to access the internet. Also, don't forget to immunize your hosts file, else you'll have to do it all over again.
Note: Do this at your own risk. Improper use of the regedit tool can render some other applications useless as well if you miss a value and delete the wrong thing, and in some extreme cases can cause severe damage to your operating system. Follow instructions, though, and you'll be fine.
Note 2: Please make sure all Adobe apps are uninstalled before doing this.
If you have any additional info you can offer on some extra values that need to be removed, or any questions, e-mail me at CorruptSuite4@gmail.com
