End of Operating System Support

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Today’s Question: Until recently, most of the Adobe Creative Cloud applications were compatible with Windows 7. Now, with seemingly no announcement, updates to Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign are no longer compatible. I have for some time been using a legacy version of Adobe Audition for compatibility reasons. Am I now forced to use legacy versions of the key Adobe applications?

Tim’s Quick Answer: Adobe has indeed discontinued support for Windows 7, in large part because Microsoft discontinued support for this version of their operating system in January of this year. You’ll either need to upgrade to Windows 10, or use legacy versions of the Adobe applications. Macintosh users similarly must be using MacOS Mojave or later.

More Detail: Adobe announced in 2018 that support would be ending for older versions of both the Windows and Macintosh operating systems. The changes were implemented over the course of the last couple of years. With the latest update to the Adobe Creative Cloud applications, you can no longer install the applications on older operating systems.

Windows users must now be using Windows 10, and Macintosh users must be using MacOS Mojave or later.

It is important to note that Microsoft discontinued support for Windows 7 in January of this year, which means your computer is now more vulnerable to security risks such as malware and computer viruses. I would therefore strongly recommend upgrading to Windows 10.

You can get the detailed system requirements for Adobe Photoshop, which serves as a good general set of requirements for all Adobe applications, on the Adobe website here:

https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/system-requirements.html

You can also read about Microsoft’s end of support for Windows 7 here:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/windows-7-end-of-life-support-information