Today’s Question: I have an older iMac running Ventura (13.x), that cannot run a later version of MacOS. I have the Adobe Photography subscription, which includes Bridge, Photoshop and Lightroom. In your opinion do you think it will continue to run on my iMac? And do you know if an update to the mentioned software will break it? And if so, is it possible to turn off auto updates from Adobe?
Tim’s Quick Answer: I would not expect MacOS Ventura to be supported much longer for future updates to Adobe applications. However, you can disable automatic updates to provide more time before you would need to upgrade your computer by using older versions of Adobe applications.
More Detail: Backward compatibility is a particular challenge for those using a Macintosh computer. Older hardware is not supported by more recent versions of the MacOS operating system, and Adobe applications (among others) tend not to support older operating system versions.
For Macintosh users the current system requirements only support operating systems as old as MacOS Ventura (v13). At some point in the relatively near future, I expect that to change so that MacOS Sonoma (v14) is the oldest operating system version that is supported. Since your computer can’t be updated, that prevents you from updating to the latest versions of Adobe applications, once they require MacOS Sonoma or later.
To buy yourself time before you need to replace your computer, you can simply stop updating Adobe applications once the system requirements no longer support MacOS Ventura. To disable automatic updates, choose “Apps” from the toolbar along the left edge of the Creative Cloud application (where you would install applications or updates). Toward the top-center click “Manage auto-updates”. You can then turn off “Auto-update” to disable any automatic updates, or keep that option turned on and then turn off automatic updates for specific applications.
