LauraA

Thank you! Yes, I totally understand the issue with laptops and photo editing. Years ago, I special ordered a Dell mobile workstation with an RGB screen, which was horribly expensive and took forever to get but was worth it (I'm primarily an equine photographer and needed something to use on-location while doing marketing shoots for breeding farms and for working while I travel). Because of Covid, I haven't been traveling nearly as much, but I need something that will serve me long-term (and a desk top will do that while I'm working from home). I'm going to poke around for a look at monitors, too. I need to upgrade that as well. At some point, I may have to re-visit something that will at least be workable for when I travel, but today isn't that day! Will this also be sufficient for video editing? I don't do a lot of it, but I do anticipate that I'll have to do more of it. I truly appreciate your time and input.

Hi, Brian! I was/am reading through your posts on PC recommendations and am curious if any of the specs and info you've provided on desktops have changed since you first published them? I absolutely must purchase soon (i.e., now), and while I'm dreading it, I want to make certain that if I have to spend a small fortune, I'm making the best purchase decision I can for a long term investment. Thank you for putting all of that together in one place, this is the first place I came to, and was specifically looking for your advice!!! (I suppose a mobile work station is another possibility, and I love the portability, but they've always been priced far higher than desk top models and I doubt that's changed.)

Just returned from the repair shop. Two SSDs were installed (went without the RAID configuration, the tech said he didn't think I needed it and would benefit from the extra storage more - and if I change my mind about it later he'd do it for free, so...), she was cleaned and checked, Windows 10 was installed, and I was able download, install, and launch (!) all of my Adobe products before I left the shop. I think this wound up costing somewhere in the neighborhood of $650 plus three months of time - but I'd have sucked it up and done it three months ago if the geniuses at Adobe would have suggested it when they realized they couldn't fix it. Thank you, Brian, for swooping in to save me with your expertise and insight. I'd *still* be on the phone with Adobe tech support and banging my head against the nearest hard surface. At least I can work now. BONUS: my machine is now much faster with the SSDs, so there's that. Of course, I'm on the road the next two days so I can't dive deeper on my machine and verify that everything is running exactly as it should be in great detail, but I'll be doing that next week and will update accordingly. FINGERS CROSSED and a million thanks again to Brian and everyone on the FB thread that helped!!!

UPDATE: New hard drives arrived today. Found a local shop to install them and they said they can do it quickly. Am going to see about just doing a Windows 10 installation on them from the get-go. They'll also install Adobe products for me (they have the benefit of high speed internet, so can do this in a fraction of the time my rural service will take). My fingers are crossed - I could be technically up and running by the weekend if all goes well.

We downloaded a new version of Windows 7 Pro, Service pack 1 to a thumb drive with a new product key that they provided (you were 100% correct on why I needed the new product key. My PC came pre-loaded with Windows straight from Dell and that's why they needed to provide a new one; the existing product key would not register with the new version of Windows 7 we were trying to activate).

(Drives have been ordered and should arrive within a couple of days)

Okay - I missed a step. The one where I get Windows 10 on a thumb drive! Is it spelled out on Microsoft's site when I buy a new copy of Windows where I can install it to direct the download to a thumb drive? (And I guess you don't even have to answer that as I'll find out when I go to do it, but I just want to make sure I'm not missing anything important). Also, is there anything I might want to consider replacing while I have my machine open for the new hard drives? I think I'm maxed out on memory. I'll ask to have the fan checked out just in case (that's like a $20 part, maybe I'll just go ahead and have that replaced while it's open, too). Onward with the adventure...! Ha ha ha

I just ran a check over on Crucial and I can get two, 1 TB solid state drives for it for about $135/each. I can totally live with that. Reinstall and upgrade are now officially banned from my vocabulary. If I use either again, please throw things at me. Now, this Dell Recovery Media - I'm not sure what that is, but I will learn, and ditto that for the RAID Controller Drivers - but I have a question on that - when I booted the new version of Windows 7 from my thumb drive (with the new product code they gave me), I lost all of the existing drivers on my PC (at least, that's what it looked like to me from here). I spent several hours on Dell's web site trying to insure that I had all of the important ones for my machine listed on my Dell account for it. I didn't have to do anything at all for the RAID configuration with that, but I understand that I was working with an existing version of Windows and not starting from scratch - I assume that's the difference here and why I'll need to hunt that down? And lastly, just for clarification for me - I'll load the (new) Windows 7 and then upgrade to 10 from there? (Quick - throw something - I just realized I typed "upgrade". I suppose it's more like I'm just using Windows 7 as a temporary bridge to get to Windows 10?) Again - I can't thank you enough for your time and effort. You don't need to look anything up for me (you've wasted enough of your precious time on this!), but if you tell me what I should look for, I can do the leg work, and with your permission - run it by you before I do anything stupid and make my impossible situation even worse. I can't believe I've absolutely wasted three months with this and could have solved it eleven weeks ago...GRRRRRRRRRR!!!

Brian!!! Thank you for your time and thoughtful responses. You've made more sense over a few hours than Adobe and Microsoft have made in three months. I cannot thank you enough for putting this into terms that both make perfect sense and fit all of the pieces together. I've read through all of this but am going to need to re-read it again and slower the second time through. Whew! I have a Dell M6400 Mobile workstation, with 16 Gb of RAM and two, raid hard drives at 700 Gb. I've upgraded the hard drives once since I've had the system (I also upgraded the RAM at some point). I'm not certain that I have the tools I need to get inside this thing, and that's why I'm pretty sure I hired someone to replace them for me (I'll have to look, I've upgraded hard drives and RAM myself a few times but for the life of me can't remember if it was this machine or not. Replacing them may not be an issue IF I can get inside it). I'm pretty certain that I won't be able to find replacement drives locally, so they'll probably have to be ordered. If I can't get in this machine, I'll have to take it somewhere to have them replaced. You'd mentioned wiping the existing hard drives on FB. Is there no hope for the drives in my system because of this issue? Again - at this point I have nothing to lose, but ordering new drives and then getting in line at a repair shop to have them replaced is going to take more time. Not a deal breaker and not impossible, I'm just curious if it's worth a stab or not. And yes, if I'm going through all of this anyway, then it would be stupid to not just upgrade to Windows 10! I'm expecting Adobe to call me tomorrow at 11 AM, but if this turns out anything like the other scheduled support calls that I've had with them, they're going to stand me up again. Thus far, they've acted as if they are completely dumbstruck by this ordeal while I'm shocked that I'm their only customer in the history of ever that's experienced this problem since October (which is really more like September, but I travel a lot so wasn't around to catch it on the day it actually happened). Thank you again for your time and expertise. I am beyond grateful.

I haven't been able to use ANY of my Adobe apps since October. Yes, it's been THREE MONTHS. I was on the phone with Adobe for twelve hours yesterday alone. The tech support and customer service has been absolutely awful. I'm at my wit's end. Despite numerous CC cleaner tool uses, a plethora of un/re-installations, and a new Windows installation, several new user accounts on my PC along the way, and I'm still getting a file is locked/permissions error (which may only be part of the problem - I'm pretty certain we've eliminated Windows as the cause (no issues w/any other programs just specific to Adobe products, and there was a CC update that appears to have been the catalyst). I am being held hostage and sanity is now questionable. Every single folder permission that could be the culprit has been modified ad nauseum, and Adobe is acting like they have zero clue but want to blame Microsoft (who says it's definitely an Adobe issue). We've tried all kinds of fixes (I'm happy to list them all off), but nothing has worked yet, and actually, it seemed like all of this only created some new issues and made things worse. I'm pretty certain that the next thing Adobe is going to want to do is install their apps on an external drive - but that doesn't really solve the problem, it's just a work-around, and it's going to take all kinds of time to work like that, isn't it? If my apps aren't living on my C drive and my PC has to reach out to an external drive for everything? That just doesn't seem acceptable to me. HELP???