I’ve spent the past 3 days trying to install Adobe CS4 Web Premium on my home Windows XP computer (as the second install of my license at work). I kept getting an error before anything would install telling me something like “the following programs failed to install” (I forget the exact wording).
Upon checking the Windows System Logs (Event Viewer -> Application), all it would tell me was “Product: Adobe Anchor Service CS4 — Installation operation failed.” With no other explanation.
After spending a bunch of time trying to find the answer with Google and on Adobe’s website, I finally came across the solution. Part of the problem, as I see it, is that CS4 is so new there isn’t much help out there for it yet. In the end, the solution is for CS3 but works beautifully for CS4 as well.
Basically you need to complete 2 simple steps.
1) Download and install the Windows Installer CleanUp Utility here:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/290301
2) Download, unzip, and run the Adobe Windows CS3 Cleanup Script (which relies on the Windows program mentioned above to run) here:
http://www.adobe.com/support/contact/cs3clean.html
I only had to run level 1 of the cleanup script to make it work.
As I said before, even though the Cleanup Script says it’s for CS3, it did work for me in installing CS4 as well.