Factory reset regarding Adobe Apps

[johnnyenglish]

Hi, I've tried searching but came up dry as it's a hard thing to search for.
I'm needing to factory reset my new iMac but it has all the adobe products (photoshop, after effects, premiere etc) as well as MS Office. I'm wanting to keep those so I'm wondering if I just transfer them onto my external hdd, do the reset, then transfer them back on would they still work properly.
I just have no idea because of the registration and keys these programs need whether this will work or not.
Thanks.

 

[xraydoc]

Hi, I've tried searching but came up dry as it's a hard thing to search for.
I'm needing to factory reset my new iMac but it has all the adobe products (photoshop, after effects, premiere etc) as well as MS Office. I'm wanting to keep those so I'm wondering if I just transfer them onto my external hdd, do the reset, then transfer them back on would they still work properly.
I just have no idea because of the registration and keys these programs need whether this will work or not.
Thanks.

Exactly what are you attempting to do with your "factory reset"? If you need to, you can reinstall OS X right on top of what exists without disrupting your files and applications.

If you need to create a fresh account, just create a new user and use that one to log in under. All your apps will remain in place.

If you're attempting to reset the machine and sell it with your apps and their serial numbers in place yet keep the original media to reinstall on your new machine, I can't help you there (violates forum rules).

 

[johnnyenglish]

Well it's what apple support said I needed to do. And as I just bought it I'd like to just clear it to get a fresh start on it.
So basically what I want to do is
1-transfer the apps I want onto the external HDD)
2-Factory reset the mac
3- once all logged back in, transfer the apps back onto the mac for me to use.
I just need to know if these apps will still work if I do this because of their security registrations/keys.

I only just bought it so there is no way I'm selling it lol.

Thanks for your reply.

 

[xraydoc]

Well it's what apple support said I needed to do. And as I just bought it I'd like to just clear it to get a fresh start on it.
So basically what I want to do is
1-transfer the apps I want onto the external HDD)
2-Factory reset the mac
3- once all logged back in, transfer the apps back onto the mac for me to use.
I just need to know if these apps will still work if I do this because of their security registrations/keys.

I only just bought it so there is no way I'm selling it lol.

Thanks for your reply.

It would be best to reinstall your apps, since wiping the machine will erase the registrations and such.

The other alternative is to back up everything with Time Machine, wipe the machine, reinstall the OS, connect the Time Machine drive and use Migration Assistant to restore all your stuff.

 

[MacGizmo]

Actually, wiping the Mac's HD won't get rid of the registration - because Adobe ties your registration to the hardware ID, not a file (software) on the drive itself.

If you want to be sure, go up under the Help menu and Deactivate/Sign-Out (depending on what versions of Adobe software you're running).

That being said, I agree with the poster above. You really, really, really should do a fresh install of Adobe apps. They put things all over the place, not just the application folder.

 

[fig]

Deactivating is the key, then just make sure you definitely record you license info so you can put it back in.

You definitely want to reinstall the apps rather than try to transfer them back and forth. Do you not have the install files/cd's?