Lightroom Serial Numbers Problem

Hi All,

I bought LR 1.0 retail from a shop then later upgraded to LR 2.0 via Adobe's store. Unfortunately this means that my Adobe account only records my upgrade serial number, not my LR 1.0 serial number which is required to initialise my LR 2 installation.

I've just had to reinstall my OS and unfortunately I incorrectly transcribed my LR 1 serial number which I kept with me for just these circumstances while on my overseas adventures.

Does anybody have any ideas how I can recover my version 1 serial from the Version 2 install that I have on my laptop?

Getting access to my original packaging for my LR 1 is almost impossible for me for the next 12 months and I need to reinstall LR on my primary machine?

I've googled and not found any completely useful answers for my situation! Thanks in advance!

Email Adobe?

That's my next step. Unfortunately, last time I sought assistance from adobe they were less helpful than I was expecting!Thanks for the suggestion though!

If you registered your LR1, Adobe should have it listed with your serial numbers. Is it definitely not there?

Is there someone else who could get access to your original packaging?

Hi Victoria, the packaging is *really* not accessible to me unfortunately! The serial number is definitely not in my Adobe account - my support request is even subject to verification of my registration - which is difficult because I'm assuming that my LR1 serial is required to prove my entitlement to support for LR through Adobe.

I'm really down to finding a way to extract my LR 1 serial from my laptop and if that fails and Adobe is unable to help me (which I'm fully expecting them not to be) its going to be easier for me to purchase another LR 2 licence (non-upgrade version). Its looking like an expensive transcription mistake.

Angus, you can likely get the serial number from the registry.

Open Regedit and in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOF​TWARE\Adobe\Lightroom\​1.0\Registration key you should see the serial_number entry unless it got overwritten when you installed LR2 (hope not, but I'm not sure what the practice is).

Good luck!

Hi Tony,

Thanks for your input. Unfortunately that field is empty in the laptop's registry (as with in the registration information on the software under Help>Registration and System Information). The software is running fine on the laptop though - its just too slow for anything more than the most basic processing.

Now I'm stuck in a game of customer service two-step with Adobe. Its very frustrating. At least I've got the trial version of LR for the next 26 days.

Adobe stores both your LR1 and LR2 serial numbers. Log into your Adobe account and both serials will be there.

Thanks Gerry. Apparently not in my case at least - believe, I've checked.

I'm now onto my third support ticket to Adobe. I'm really hoping to resolve this soon. Given how much I have paid for their software, I would expect better customer service than what I have received from them lately.

I guess, if we're learn anything from this, it's a good reminder to register your software, because if you don't, they don't know you've got it and can't help... I'm sorry that's no help to you at the moment though Angus! Just as a passing thought, you might not have registered it under another email address, might you?

Hi Victoria, Not that I'm aware of - they did check for other accounts for me in relation to another support enquiry that they managed not to be able to assist me with.

The funny thing is I thought it was all registered, because my Adobe account shows my Photoshop CS 3 serial number and my lightroom 2.6 upgrade serial. I hadn't realised that the Adobe account would need to have all previous versions serials on the file. Hopefully the net result will be that if/when this is sorted I'll have a full record of my serial numbers on my Adobe account. given that the software had been working for several years, I'd assumed that my serials were all in order.

I'm quite lucky in that the Australian retailer I purchased from has been able to send me an invoice confirming the sale which I've now submitted.

I get very frustrated when companies take days to respond to support requests, then close the request when the issue is clearly not resolved. I'm sure I'll get over it, but it can't help the fact that it would have probably been a less frustrating and painful solution for me to crack the software - but that is something I refuse to do.

Oh that's really good news that it's gradually getting sorted out Angus!

In case anyone was wondering, the issue was finally resolved by Adobe after:
- 8 Days
- 4 sent emails (3 of which were to Adobe)
- 1 phone call

Good to hear it was resolved. Pity it took so much effort.