Adobe Updater Deletes Lightroom 6: Here’s How to Get It Back
If you use Lightroom 6 and don’t have any plans to switch to Adobe’s subscription software, here’s a warning: don’t run the Lightroom updater through Adobe’s download manager with default settings. It will delete your Lightroom 6 and install Lightroom CC instead.
“Anybody using Lightroom 6 standalone version beware if the Adobe Download manager indicated that you have updates,” one photographer wrote on the Photographic Society of New Zealand Facebook page. “I ran the update last night and the update decided to uninstall my Lightroom 6 and install Lightroom CC.
“If you then try to log into Lightroom it now demands a Subscription or a 7 day trial, thus preventing you from getting your images.”
We reached out to Adobe, who confirmed this issue and posted a notice about it on the Lightroom Journal blog today.
“We understand we sent perpetual customers down a path of subscribing to a trial version of the new Lightroom Classic CC last week, replacing already installed versions of Lightroom 6,” Adobe writes. “We sincerely apologize for not providing a better user experience for our perpetual customers to try out Lightroom Classic CC while still keeping Lightroom 6 in place. This was a mistake on our end.”
The good news is that you can get Lightroom 6 back and prevent this from happening again. The problem is that the “Remove old versions” option in the “Advanced Options” of the update is checked by default.
If you’ve had Lightroom 6 replaced by Lightroom CC on your computer, here’s what you’ll need to do to get 6 back:
First, uninstall Lightroom Classic CC from your computer and then download the Lightroom 6 installer from Adobe’s Download Photoshop Lightroom page to reinstall the app on your computer.
Then, when prompted that you have updates, update to Lightroom Classic CC without having the updater delete your existing version of Lightroom 6. You’ll need to click “Advanced Options” and uncheck the “Remove old versions” option before doing the update.
Adobe is updating the updater to have “Remove old versions” unchecked by default moving forward.
“As a result, you can try out Lightroom Classic CC for the trial period and still keep Lightroom 6 running in tandem on your desktop,” Adobe says. “Please let us know if you are experiencing any additional issues with this process moving forward.”
Image credits: Header illustration trash can by GNOME icon artists
