Continue using Lightroom 6.14 despite Adobe trying to hijack your PC

[SiriusLux]

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Fellow Forum members,

I decided to continue using LR 6.14 on my PC - it does not work on my Macs anymore - for as long as I can. It is the last perpetual LR version. To still have something, that is perpetual and that I "own" instead of having to pay for subscriptions, that I do not want, I have decided to use Capture One for more modern cameras.
LR 6.14 works will with files from my M10, and works well with DNGs from more modern cameras, if they have been converted with DNG converter.

Recently, and due to the end of life of Windows 10, I updated my PC to Windows 11.
Yesterday, I tried to start LR 6.14, but somehow, it lead me to Adobe's registration site and all I got was a copy of LR CC, that I never wanted. That was despite starting LR by starting the very Lightroom.exe file that is part of LR 6.14.
Since I did not want that, I tried to get back to my version of LR 6.14. That turned out to be an awkward process, but I finally managed to do that.
 

Amongst other steps, it was necessary to do multiple reboots, apply the Adobe Creative Cloud Cleaner Tool (FREE) to remove the CC related apps, that were installed without me wanting this to happen,
- deactivate the Adobe Licensing software,
- take the PC off internet, 
- reapply my serial number,
- block any Adobe apps from going on the internet, by creating specific rules in the Windows Defender Firewall,
- block adobe sited in the "host" file by directing them to the local host 127.0.0.1

In the end, all that worked, and I can now again use LR 6.14.

From a personal view, I'm fed up with Adobe's attitude of screwing customers by actively trying to make software, they sold to customers in the past stop working. That simply makes me sick!

I hope, my post will serve other forum members, having similar issues.

All the best 

Siriuslux

[eaharman]

I wholeheartedly agree with you wrt Adobe's attitude to licensed products 

I owned Photoshop waay before digital cameras were around and used to scan my negs on a Nikon Coolscan, and over the years I bought into their Creative Suite range of products as I used to dabble with Illustrator too - I come from an 'arty' family

As happens over time you upgrade h/w and o/s's but recently Adobe have turned off their licensing servers for some of the older pre-CC stuff such that now one is unable to unregister a licence and then re-register it on albeit on any other kit albeit on an o/s & platform that your historic product still works but is under Adobe's eyes unsupported.

I too switched to Capture One, it is I would say 1y on less buggy than PS 5.5 which I last had as part of the last Creative Suite bundle of packages and for which I paid £1400 as part of an upgrade from a prior version...

The thought of paying a subscription for a product that for sure is feature-rich yet still contains bugs that must be over a decade old simply beggars belief and I simply refuse to pour more money into their coffers.

Even C1 has it's bugs, but I bought the perpetual licence option - so don't get free updates so am stuck on version 16.5... but tbh it has everything I regularly need in tweaking my shots and if I am feeling adventurous there are free alternatives like Affinity which are pretty good too,

 

/Ed

[SiriusLux]

Thanks for your feedback, it seems, I am not alone with my thoughts.
If anyone needs the suggestions from ChatGPT, I can advise. If you prompt ChatGPT, obviously it is very helpful, however one needs to be cautious and not jump on the first suggestion it does. To me, at a certain point during the process, it suggested to delete the subfolders, where LR was residing. It goes without saying, I didn't do that but kept prompting, so I got suggestions, that made more sense.

[Jeff S]

Discussed ad nauseam here.  In short, I’m among those who find the subscription based “Photography Plan” a bargain at a mere 10 bucks a month (unchanged in years), including both Photoshop and Lightroom, cancellation anytime, and optional cloud storage (which I avoid).  It costs no more than I used to spend, and is far more convenient. All updates, both features and camera/lens support, are current and automatic; no searching or added costs.  And, since 6.14, image processing is far superior.  I’ve reprocessed and re-printed pics from long ago (when 6.14 was current), and have gotten significant improvements. 
 

To each his/her own; choices abound.

Edited 20 hours ago by Jeff S

[SiriusLux]

15 minutes ago, Jeff S said:

Discussed ad nauseam here.  In short, I’m among those who find the subscription based “Photography Plan” a bargain at a mere 10 bucks a month (unchanged in years), including both Photoshop and Lightroom, cancellation anytime, and optional cloud storage (which I avoid).  It costs no more than I used to spend, and is far more convenient. All updates, both features and camera/lens support, are current and automatic; no searching or added costs.  And, since 6.14, image processing is far superior.  I’ve reprocessed and re-printed pics from long ago (when 6.14 was current), and have gotten significant improvements. 
 

To each his/her own; choices abound.

Hello Jeff,
You’re absolutely right, everybody do their own choice. It may as well be, that something has been discussed to sea sickness, just to translate literally.
Maybe I am wrong, but I don’t think it has been discussed, how Adobe installs stuff on my PC without having the users’ consent, and makes life miserable for their customers. As you might guess, while I understand, that they strive for excellent profitability, they also execute that strategy in a way that can bring their customers to nausea, just to stick to your words. 
Regarding the prices, in Europe the minimum monthly price for LR only (no PS) is 14.49 EUR ($16.95) per month or 173.88 EUR/yr for a yearly subscription, so, you can stop the subscription after 12 months at the earliest: https://www.adobe.com/de/products/photoshop-lightroom.html

I compare that to the initial 120EUR, I paid for LR 1.0 and the approx 90 EUR I paid every couple of years for the upgrade, whenever I thought it was worth the upgrade.

in case, you want PS as well, it’ll be 23.78 EUR/mo ($27.83) with a yearly subscription or 285.36 EUR/yr.
I never wanted PS, so that comparison is not for me.

You must be blessed, if you get the subscription for $10.00 a month.

That LR has gotten better, I am quite sure, so has Capture one, where I bought a perpetual license for around 200 EUR last year, and am happy with. It is fast enough for 102MP RAW and jpeg files, at least on my AMD Ryzen 5900X PC, but also on my MacBook pro M4.

Again, anybody is free in their choices.

have fun!

[Jeff S]

I prepaid the annual fee this year for $120, which Adobe offered as an option, to avoid an increase to $14.99 per month.  Frankly, even if the rate had increased, it would have been one of the biggest bangs for the buck in my photographic pursuits, including expenses relating to cameras, lenses, printer, papers, inks, and lots more on ancillary stuff. Mere peanuts. Prints are my primary output and LR/ Photoshop are integral to that process, with the additional benefit of file management, along with ImagePrint, which is also well worth its $895 price tag.  Priorities, for me.

[zeitz]

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2 hours ago, SiriusLux said:

I'm fed up with Adobe's attitude of screwing customers

Let's talk about Axcel, the parent company of Capture One and Phase One, and their approach to screwing customers.  If you find yourself with raw files from a Phase One camera, you can only open them with Capture One.  Axcel does not give any other software company access to the intellectual property for Phase One raw conversion.  So the only thing I've done with Capture One is convert .iiq files into .tif for processing in PhotoShop.  And now my "perpetual license" for Capture One 20 does not work.  I guess if I were to buy a Phase One camera, which I won't, the would generously give me a "perpetual license" to Capture One.

[zeitz]

And while I'm ranting, .iiq is based on .tif.  And Leica folks use .dng.  Abode owns both .tif and .dng.  So Abode could suddenly declare .tif and .dng to be proprietary and no longer allow use other than with Lightroom and PhotoShop.  So I guess Adobe is not too interested in screwing customers.

[SrMi]

55 minutes ago, zeitz said:

Let's talk about Axcel, the parent company of Capture One and Phase One, and their approach to screwing customers.  If you find yourself with raw files from a Phase One camera, you can only open them with Capture One.  Axcel does not give any other software company access to the intellectual property for Phase One raw conversion.  So the only thing I've done with Capture One is convert .iiq files into .tif for processing in PhotoShop.  And now my "perpetual license" for Capture One 20 does not work.  I guess if I were to buy a Phase One camera, which I won't, the would generously give me a "perpetual license" to Capture One.

I can open and edit IQ4 150 files in Lightroom. C1 works better in some cases, though.

[SrMi]

52 minutes ago, zeitz said:

And while I'm ranting, .iiq is based on .tif.  And Leica folks use .dng.  Abode owns both .tif and .dng.  So Abode could suddenly declare .tif and .dng to be proprietary and no longer allow use other than with Lightroom and PhotoShop.  So I guess Adobe is not too interested in screwing customers.

DNG is open source. You cannot make it proprietary, AFAIK.

 

[250swb]

Like Jeff I recently got the email from Adobe saying my subscription would be going up from £9.99 (which it has been for years) to £14.99 a month. The option was a yearly subscription of £124 which I took, so effectively my subscription went up 0.34 pence per month.

I don't really understand the 'I bought it so I'm keeping it!' approach if something wears out, we tend not to do it with worn out shoes and throw them away, and there does come a time when old software becomes worn out in the sense it's no longer a useful tool given we buy new PC's and graphics cards that require faster and more integrated software. The argument of 'it does everything I need it to do' is fair enough, except we still buy new cameras yet the old one presumably 'did what you needed it to do'. The hypocrisy comes from spending everything on improving photography with a new camera but not the best means to process those files because software just isn't sexy enough.

It's unusual for a month to go by without Adobe automatically adding a new or improved feature to Lightroom or Photoshop operating under the subscription model, features we'd have waited 18 months for in the past. These aren't just toys, they get the most out of our 24mp+ files, they get far more out of old 6mp files, and they make post processing easier and faster. An old version of Photoshop or Lightroom is like walking around with a hole in your shoe and bragging about how frugal you are while having a Leica around you neck, neither makes sense. 

[LocalHero1953]

I note the Adobe annual subscription as published is now £19.97/mo, instead of the £14.99/mo that I was notified of last renewal (March). This includes 1Tb storage instead of the 20Gb I have now, so perhaps the 20Gb option has been dropped. At last renewal I was offered the prepayment option which kept the price at £120; I guess I might get a similar 'attractive' renewal next March - at a 50% uplift on the year. 

[PhotoCruiser]

vor 6 Stunden schrieb SrMi:

DNG is open source. You cannot make it proprietary, AFAIK.

You are correct that it is open-source, but Open-Source is not always without intellectual property.
Adobe has the intellectual property on it but can revoke the free use under some circumstances
 

Zitat

Revocation

Adobe may revoke the rights granted above to any individual or organizational licensee in the event that such licensee or its affiliates brings any patent action against Adobe or its affiliates related to the reading or writing of files that comply with the DNG Specification.

Any Compliant Implementation distributed under this license must include the following notice displayed in a prominent manner within its source code and documentation: "This product includes DNG technology under license by Adobe.”

The licensing informations can be read here, on the bottom of the page
https://helpx.adobe.com/camera-raw/digital-negative.html

Chris

Edited 9 hours ago by PhotoCruiser

[SiriusLux]

18 minutes ago, 250swb said:

Like Jeff I recently got the email from Adobe saying my subscription would be going up from £9.99 (which it has been for years) to £14.99 a month. The option was a yearly subscription of £124 which I took, so effectively my subscription went up 0.34 pence per month.

I don't really understand the 'I bought it so I'm keeping it!' approach if something wears out, we tend not to do it with worn out shoes and throw them away, and there does come a time when old software becomes worn out in the sense it's no longer a useful tool given we buy new PC's and graphics cards that require faster and more integrated software. The argument of 'it does everything I need it to do' is fair enough, except we still buy new cameras yet the old one presumably 'did what you needed it to do'. The hypocrisy comes from spending everything on improving photography with a new camera but not the best means to process those files because software just isn't sexy enough.

It's unusual for a month to go by without Adobe automatically adding a new or improved feature to Lightroom or Photoshop operating under the subscription model, features we'd have waited 18 months for in the past. These aren't just toys, they get the most out of our 24mp+ files, they get far more out of old 6mp files, and they make post processing easier and faster. An old version of Photoshop or Lightroom is like walking around with a hole in your shoe and bragging about how frugal you are while having a Leica around you neck, neither makes sense. 

Hello Ferrari Fan (I imply that is the case, haveing your acronym 250swb),

I get your point, all I am deeply against, is a company hijacking my PC, installing software on it without my consent, that actually inhibits the software I have bought to work. That is my real point.

Now, when you say "old software becomes worn out in the sense it's no longer a useful tool given we buy new PC's and graphics cards that require faster and more integrated software.", in my opinion it is exactly the other way round, the ever and ever more complex and resource eating software makes that older computers get slower and slower doing the same tasks thatn in the past slower and slower computers and therefore turn them obsolete, not that the computer makes faster software necessary.

And as for the shoe analog, I do have shoes that I bought in 1991 that are perfectly fine, they are very elegant Church's, I also have shoes, that after running with them for less then 400km are so soft, that I am better off throwing them away, as you can't repair them.
I have a 37 year old car, that is much fun to drive, and does neither have a computer screen, nor power steering, ABS, ESP, distance warner, and what not. It's entirely my decision, whether I use it or not, no manufacturer can put a device in it over the air, that makes it unusable.

Now a small excursion to what Adobe is in terms of financial performance, and that is completely in line with the steep rises in subscription fees:

• Return on Invested Capital (ROIC):

  • 2023: 40.1%

  • 2024: 49.98%

  • 2025: 50.85%

• Return on Assets (ROA): 24.17%

This analysis has been calculated using vinley.ai 

Again, it is up to everyone to decide, where and how they spend the money they have. I guess, in this forum, we like exquisite cameras, and we also appreciate, that Leica is not able to make our lenses obsolete by adding something to them without our consent, that makes them unusable.

I'll leave it there and hope, we all continue to have fun with what we like.

[250swb]

1 hour ago, SiriusLux said:

Hello Ferrari Fan (I imply that is the case, haveing your acronym 250swb),

I get your point, all I am deeply against, is a company hijacking my PC, installing software on it without my consent, that actually inhibits the software I have bought to work. That is my real point.

Now, when you say "old software becomes worn out in the sense it's no longer a useful tool given we buy new PC's and graphics cards that require faster and more integrated software.", in my opinion it is exactly the other way round, the ever and ever more complex and resource eating software makes that older computers get slower and slower doing the same tasks thatn in the past slower and slower computers and therefore turn them obsolete, not that the computer makes faster software necessary.

And as for the shoe analog, I do have shoes that I bought in 1991 that are perfectly fine, they are very elegant Church's, I also have shoes, that after running with them for less then 400km are so soft, that I am better off throwing them away, as you can't repair them.
I have a 37 year old car, that is much fun to drive, and does neither have a computer screen, nor power steering, ABS, ESP, distance warner, and what not. It's entirely my decision, whether I use it or not, no manufacturer can put a device in it over the air, that makes it unusable.

Now a small excursion to what Adobe is in terms of financial performance, and that is completely in line with the steep rises in subscription fees:

 

• Return on Invested Capital (ROIC):

  • 2023: 40.1%

  • 2024: 49.98%

  • 2025: 50.85%

• Return on Assets (ROA): 24.17%

This analysis has been calculated using vinley.ai 

Again, it is up to everyone to decide, where and how they spend the money they have. I guess, in this forum, we like exquisite cameras, and we also appreciate, that Leica is not able to make our lenses obsolete by adding something to them without our consent, that makes them unusable.

I'll leave it there and hope, we all continue to have fun with what we like.

And yet you 'upgraded' to Windows 11 which tries to force you to use OneDrive, hijacking your files in the Cloud and when the Cloud is full charges you for more storage. Something doesn't seem consistent there.

 

[SiriusLux]

1 hour ago, 250swb said:

And yet you 'upgraded' to Windows 11 which tries to force you to use OneDrive, hijacking your files in the Cloud and when the Cloud is full charges you for more storage. Something doesn't seem consistent there.

 

Yes 250swb, I did upgrade to Windows 11, and Microsoft did not charge me a Euro for that upgrade. They give me security updates though. 
Just to be complement this information, OneDrive is not activated, and neither did I have to activate a Microsoft account. My account on my PC is a strict local account.
So, at least for me, the hijacking, that is mentioned in your post, ist not a reality. Having said that, I do not want to have a back-and-forth or arguments. You do have a different opinion from mine, and that's completely fine.
And yes, I would have preferred to stay with Windows 10, since that gave me less "information", that I do not need.

Edited 6 hours ago by SiriusLux

[zeitz]

10 hours ago, SrMi said:

DNG is open source. You cannot make it proprietary, AFAIK.

.dng was created and is owned by Adobe.  Adobe has made it available to anyone because Adobe would like everyone to use a universal raw format.  Further .dng is neither source code nor object code so the term open source does not apply.

Edited 5 hours ago by zeitz

[PhotoCruiser]

Have you read the what Adobe states regarding DNG in the link i provided above?
The DNG Specifications and the SDK Kit is freely available to build own DNG related software and that makes it as a open software while source code is not available, so it's not clearly open-source but free to use for developing new DNG related software.
And that makes it hard for Adobe to deny the use of DNG or make it as pay for software.
Chris

[zeitz]

50 minutes ago, PhotoCruiser said:

The DNG Specifications and the SDK Kit is freely available to build own DNG related software

Adobe still owns .dng.  How they control their intellectual property is their decision.  You are right, if Adobe tried to take back access to .dng, the courts would have to decide if they could so because they have not protected their intellectual property up to this point.  Unlike say .psd.  But Adobe could release .dng2 and not give free access to it.  And .dng is NOT software; it is a file format.  You can read .dng with a text editor.

What I am addressing is the statement that Adobe wants to" screw customers".  Adobe wants to stay in business.  Everyone wants a perpetual license.  A license is an agreement that lets you use the software that is on your computer.  It is not a perpetual guarantee that the software will run on any computer that hasn't been built yet, using an operating system that hasn't be written yet, for cameras that haven't been developed yet.  Every time Apple and Microsoft release OS upgrades, every time a new series of computer chips come out and every time a new camera is release, someone has to modify the source code to keep it working.  No software company is going to take on that task for free.  At least Adobe tests its software against the beta releases of a new OS so when say Teton drops, its software will work with high probability because professional graphics / video users have to have working software.

If "open source" is your goal, use Linux, use OpenOffice, use Rawtherapee or DarkTable or Gimp.  You can download the object code (executable) or the source to write your own modifications, all for free.  You can send your source modifications to the developer to get it incorporated into a release.

If Adobe is making so much money from monthly subscriptions, buy Adobe stock and see how much that pays off for you.  If Adobe is making money hand over fist, then you will have plenty of money to pay the monthly subscription.

But if old software, running on old computers for old cameras is fine for you, then use the old versions of the software.  But don't call yourself a customer just because you bought something in the past.  When Adobe lost the folks who would not pay for updates, they did not lose customers.  They only lost former customers.

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[Jeff S]

5 hours ago, SiriusLux said:

Now a small excursion to what Adobe is in terms of financial performance, and that is completely in line with the steep rises in subscription fees:

My annual equivalent subscription fee of $119.88 for the Photography Plan, including LR and Photoshop, has not increased from $119.88 in the years since I switched from the old model. I don’t need or pay for extra cloud storage, and Adobe doesn’t mandate it.  LR 6.14 is a joke compared to what the current software can provide, and how easily it operates. LR alone now has many features that used to require Photoshop. Both continue to receive regular upgrades, at no additional cost to me.  Name another product these days that hasn’t increased in price over time, probably significantly.