iLEMONed

I know it's late. The reason I hesitated to publish this post is that... I can't figure out a way to do the pre-serialization. CS4 won't respect an application.xml.override like CS3 did, unless you have a volume license (according to the official CS4 deployment manual). So this time I can only share with you the customization part.

Please be noticed, I myself am not 100% satisfied with what I've figured out, but the hacks have been working absolutely fine for over 2 months on my XP SP3 and Vista SP1. And as always, you do this at your own risk. Read on if we understand each other.

Photoshop CS4 (Extended)

1. Navigate to /Adobe CS4/payloads/.
2. Open /AdobeBridge3All/AdobeBridge3All.proxy.xml with a text editor.
3. Search for <Dependencies>.
4. Delete everything within <Dependencies>, except two blocks with type="critical", make it look exactly like screenshot #1.
5. Open /AdobePhotoshop11-Core/AdobePhotoshop11-Core.proxy.xml, repeat step 3-4, make it look exactly like screenshot #2.
6. Save both files. Oh did I tell you to backup first?
7. Run setup and wave goodbye to craps.

Illustrator CS4

If you already edited AdobeBridge3All.proxy.xml in a previous Photoshop installation and successfully got rid of Adobe Bridge, you won't need to touch the one in Illustrator. Otherwise, treat it the same way (step 1-4 of the Photoshop section above).

Then, yes, /AdobeIllustrator14mul/AdobeIllustrator14mul.proxy.xml, and here's screenshot #3 for your referrence.

Design Premium CS4

Files you need to edit are:

• /AdobeBridge3All/AdobeBridge3All.proxy.xml
• /AdobeDreamweaver10-mul/AdobeDreamweaver10-mul.proxy.xml
• /AdobeFireworks10All/AdobeFireworks10All.proxy.xml
• /AdobeFlash10-mul/AdobeFlash10-mul.proxy.xml
• /AdobeIllustrator14mul/AdobeIllustrator14mul.proxy.xml
• /AdobeInDesign6AppBase-mul/AdobeInDesign6AppBase-mul.proxy.xml
• /AdobePhotoshop11-Core/AdobePhotoshop11-Core.proxy.xml
• /AdobeVersionCue4All/AdobeVersionCue4All.proxy.xml

Edit how? You've already learned that.

One tip is, if you kept, let's say "Adobe XMP Panels CS4" in one of the xml files, you can delete it when you see it else wheres.

I don't use anything other than Photoshop and Illustrator, so I'm unable to tell you which components are required by other products included in a Creative Suite. Sorry.

Miscellaneous

I'm not gonna guide you through Dreamweaver or Web Premium or anything else neither. Hopefully you can draw inferences about other cases from the above examples.

You're gonna have to trust Adobe this time, what's been tagged as "critical" in the xml files are indeed critical. Sky falls down if you remove them. Here are my understandings (some are just superficial) to several important components. They are required by the CS4 apps or recommended by me:

• Adobe Anchor Service CS4
  The Lord that rules.
• Adobe CSI CS4
  The infrastructure that rules, too. I guess the VersionCue Client service which enables the "Open File" dialogs is also included in here.
• Adobe Type Support CS4
  Support for layers with texts/fonts.
• Adobe XMP Panels CS4
  Support for the "File Info" dialogs.
• Adobe CMaps CS4 / Adobe ALM CS4
  Required by Illustrator (?)
• Adobe Color - Photoshop Specific CS4
• Adobe Color NA Recommended Settings CS4
• Adobe Color CommonSetRGB
• Adobe Color CommonSetCMYK

At last, my apologies again for I didn't have time and energy to present a more detailed and refined tutorial. Hope as many folks as possible can benefit from this post. Merry Christmas.

We all know that various other components which we don't really need, are bundled with Adobe CS3 products. These few days I came across a little bit and I would like to share my experience with you. So here's a couple tips about having a customized installation. I'll take Photoshop CS3 for examples, the tricks should also apply to other individual CS3 products such as Dreamweaver, Flash, or Illustrator.

Pre-serialization and Suppression

Automatically enter your serial number during installation process.

1. Create a blank text file using (e.g.) Notepad
2. Ctrl+c/v or type the following:
   

   <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
   <Configuration>
   <Payload>
   <Data key="Serial" protected="0">1234xxxx5678yyyy4321zzzz</Data>
   <Data key="Registration">Suppress</Data>
   <Data key="EULA">Suppress</Data>
   <Data key="Updates">Suppress</Data>
   </Payload>
   </Configuration>

3. Save as "application.xml.override"
4. Put it into "payloads\AdobePhotoshop10en_US_volume\"
5. Run setup.exe and have fun.

To Choose Components during Installation

Add an "Options" step to installation/uninstallation process.

1. Open folder "payloads\AdobePhotoshop10en_US_volume\"
2. Open the file "AdobePhotoshop10en_US_volume.proxy.xml"
3. Search for "<Requires>" (at line #1770)
4. Delete the whole "<Requires>...</Requires>"
5. Save
6. Run setup.exe and have fun

These components are required or recommended:

• Adobe Anchor Service CS3
  The annoying "Bonjour" service and the licensing service.
  "Bonjour" (C:\Program Files\Bonjour\mDNSResponder.exe) can be disabled manually after the installation but DON'T you delete it! The other one is needed to authorize the running of the application.
• Adobe Color Common Settings
• Adobe Color NA Recommended Settings
• Adobe Type Support
  You need this to add new text layers to existing PSD files which already contain text layers.
• Adobe Version Cue CS3 Client
  The "Open file" dialog gets errors without this component.

Note: If you're having Web Standard / Premium or Design Standard / Premium instead of stand-alone Photoshop/Dreamweaver/etc., please read this official PDF document carefully to find out the differences of the above two tricks.

Fixing an Installation Error

If you're seeing this error right after the initialization of setup process:

1. Press "Win+R" to launch "Run"
2. Enter "cmd" to open the command-line window
3. Type in "Regsvr32 C:\windows\system32\jscript.dll"
4. Type in "Regsvr32 C:\windows\system32\vbscript.dll"
5. Run setup.exe and have fun

What a beautiful icon Louie Mantia brought us!

Grabbed Adobe Photoshop CS3 for Windows, it was an SSG release. As they said in the nfo, their keygen generates VLKs so no activation is needed. Okay okay no more piracy talk.

Installation took more than 5 minutes to finish, I didn't get a chance to choose which components to install. What's worse, the un-installation refused to let me remove components I don't want! I'm not sure if there are parameters for setup.exe but anyway this is considered rude and compelling! As for CS2, the only way (I know) to prevent components that I don't like to get installed, is to delete some of the setup files. And I will try the same trick later.

Update: I made it, by editing an xml script. Now I can choose which components to install.

The app loads pretty fast and it's not sucking as much memory as CS2 does. I've been loving the new interface since its beta. This is the best version of photoshop ever.