Canadian-Iranian, now based out of California, TIWIK is a blog exploring the learnings of a dad throughout his adventure from student to engineer and through fatherhood.

Photoshop Elements Installation Issues With Windows 10 BSOD

Raz Mataz
Troubleshooting

I have a pretty recent and clean system, running Windows 10 Pro, just purchased Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements 2021 on black friday sale. As excited as I was, I kept on getting a BSOD (blue screen of death) during the install.

Specific Error:

BSOD - Kernel Security Check Failure

Relevant System Specs:

  • Windows 10 Pro - build: 19042.630

  • Intel i9-10900k 3.70GH - OC 3.90GH

  • 32GB DDR4 - 3600

  • RTX2070 Super - OC - driver: 27.21.14.5730

  • Samsung 970 Evo + - 1TB x3 (one which is system, one is where PS was being installed)

  • Photoshop Elements 2021 / Photoshop Premiere 2021

Failure Signature:

The system continues to restart and recover itself during every instal attempt. I tried the following without success:

  • Updated Nvidia drivers to the latest

  • Rolled back Nvidia drivers

  • Ensured all other system drivers are up to date

  • Ran memory checks with no issues - Windows Memory Diagnostics

  • Ran SMART Drive diagnostics no issues

  • Disabling the graphics cards completely

Solution:

There are actually two solutions that I did not find anywhere on the web or the forums:

  1. Install Photoshop elements free trial through the Windows Store, and activate it using the key you purchased. This process for some reason did not seem to crash my system. But running ‘Windows Apps’ is not my preferred method of operations hence the second solution below.

  2. Boot Windows into safe mode (with network enabled) . Install both Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements while in safe mode (through Adobe’s site). This method seemed to avoid the system crash. Restart the system and try the applications. If the desktop shortcuts don’t work (in my case they didn’t), you might need to adjust their address to another executable. For some reason the created shortcuts reference: "..\Photoshop Elements 2021\Elements Home\Adobe Photoshop Elements 2021.exe" but this doesn’t work on my system. Instead go one level up to the “..\Photoshop Elements 2021” folder there is an executable called: “PhotoshopElementsEditor.exe”. That executable actually launches PS as expected. Upi cam right click and create a desktop shortcut and voila. Similar action is needed for Premier.

Hope this helps anyone out there frustrated and dealing with the same issue.

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