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Acorn

macrumors 68030
Jan 2, 2009
2,642
349
macrumors
Are you sure it still runs on mac os. I had adobe 5.5 premium set and basically apple dropped support for it. it wont run anymore so I had to buy stupid subscription. I think adobe took down all the download links for adobe suites except the subscription ones. plus all the download sites used to link to adobe directly so the links are all broken.
 
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Dr. McKay

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 20, 2010
818
112
Belgium, Europe
I got the installer from my work's IT service. I needed Indesign CS6 for work (working at home a couple of days a week) so luckily they still had the installer (we're still on Mac OS X.12 Sierra for the time being).

And you're right, you can't download any older versions anymore, even the first CC versions. Just a way of making you upgrade. It's scandalous : my company bought the licences at the time but now you need to be subscribed to the new Adobe CC as well in order to activate your installed version of CS6. It's almost criminal. So basically, you can't use what you already paid for unless you pay them more.
In the end, all Adobe wants is your money.

Looking at Affinity suite, my company as well as myself, to find out what's possible or not. And we're far from being the only ones. Adobe has delusions of grandeur. They'd better watch themselves, as greed could cost them dearly...
 
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organicCPU

macrumors 6502a
Aug 8, 2016
827
287
Adobe CS6 is even running on macOS Mojave 10.14.x, but just through virtualization on macOS Catalina or higher. To prevent installing some old Java 1.6 version, there is a procedure to temporarily disable SIP while creating some empty folders that can mimic the presence of Java to satisfy Adobe CS6.

Back in August 2019, I was able to get the installer for CS6 from Adobe. Asking chat support for the most recent version of my former registered suite while being logged in with my Adobe ID was enough to get a link to the installer. However, Adobe won't serve you the most recent versions of the apps and finding updates got quite hard.

I'm still looking for an offline update installer to Adobe InDesign 8.1.0.419. Some folks even claim that this version has been never released for the perpetual license version, but automatic updates brought it to me once on two other Adobe InDesign installations. Compared to the latest Adobe InDesign 8.0.2 patch the 8.1.x version is able to open Adobe InDesign CC files, too. So if your IT department does fortuitously have that update, it would be great to share it here.
 

Dr. McKay

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 20, 2010
818
112
Belgium, Europe
Adobe CS6 is even running on macOS Mojave 10.14.x, but just through virtualization on macOS Catalina or higher. To prevent installing some old Java 1.6 version, there is a procedure to temporarily disable SIP while creating some empty folders that can mimic the presence of Java to satisfy Adobe CS6.

Don't need to install an older Java version for Indesign CS6. My installer gives me Illustrator and Photoshop as well, but hardly use those. Tried to install Illustrator CS6 the other day, but unlike Indesign, that did request I install a specific Java version. So, I didn't bother with it...
 
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organicCPU

macrumors 6502a
Aug 8, 2016
827
287
Tried to install Illustrator CS6 the other day, but unlike Indesign, that did request I install a specific Java version. So, I didn't bother with it...
I didn't know that InDesign just works fine without empty Java folders. The majority of Adobe CS6 apps requires the presence of installation paths from Java 1.6 to function properly.
If you ever want to give Illustrator CS6 another try, here is how to circumvent installing any Java by just creating empty folders inside the System folder. To do that, System Integrity Protection needs to be disabled temporarily:
Bash:
#Reboot in Recovery Mode by pressing press Cmd + R during startup.
#Select Terminal from the menu, disable SIP and reboot:
csrutil disable
reboot
#Create two empty folders that can mimic Java for Illustrator CS6:
sudo mkdir -p /System/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/1.6.0.jdk
sudo mkdir -p /System/Library/Java/Support/Deploy.bundle
#Reboot again into Recovery Mode by pressing press Cmd + R during startup.
#Select Terminal from the menu, enable SIP and reboot:
csrutil enable
reboot
 
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TheGenerous

macrumors 65816
Nov 14, 2010
1,096
405
I'm an Austronaut
If you have the installer, can't you just have a volume on your Mac with an older OS installed, and boot the volume whenever you need to use your older Adobe? Since is the same Mac you could write and read from both volumes
 

organicCPU

macrumors 6502a
Aug 8, 2016
827
287
Adobe CS6 is even running on macOS Mojave 10.14.x…
I'd like to correct myself a bit. It's true that I was able to install Adobe CS6 on a common macOS Mojave. But after using it for a while, I meanwhile realized that there were serious problems with color management. The color settings didn't persist in Adobe InDesign CS6 and color profiles of exported PDFs weren't as expected.
The only way I've found to avoid that bug, was setting up an unsupported macOS Mojave running on HFS+ instead of APFS. Of course, HFS+ on macOS Mojave has some drawbacks of its own.
At least for now, all tested Adobe CS6 apps on a HFS+ install seem to behave like on macOS Sierra. If using Adobe CS6, keep macOS Sierra if you can. If you can't, keep in mind to prevent running APFS on macOS High Sierra or macOS Mojave.
 
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