It’s not true, I don’t hate you, but the [Adobe CS4][cs4] installer does.

I was installing Adobe Creative Suite 4 today on a Macintosh. I had the amazing Adobe CS4 Master Collection media to install from, but all I needed was the Illustrator, InDesign, Photoshop and Bridge. So in the installation process I choose a custom install and de-select most everything except those applications. I un-ticked After Effects because I didn’t want to install After Effects. I un-ticked Soundbooth, I un-ticked Dreamweaver, I un-ticked all them other applications.

The installation process begins. Finally it finishes. Afterwards I had Illustrator CS4, InDesign CS4, Photoshop CS4 and Bridge CS4 installed on my Mac’s hard drive. They all worked a treat.

I also had a dog’s dinner of all the other flipping applications installed, all the applications I did not want to install, I had little vomit stains of Adobe installations that didn’t quite actually install, but installed.

So for example I had a new folder in the Applications folder called “Adobe After Effects CS4” and inside there was an application named “Adobe After Effects CS4.app”. Except it isn’t an actual flipping application. It has a great big no entry icon on it because it isn’t an actual executable application.

In one sense the installer did what I expected: it did not install a usable After Effects CS4. In another sense it effing ignored what I expected by creating an installation folder for After Effects CS4 and then created an incomplete stub of the After Effects CS4 application.

I wish the Adobe CS4 installer had just done what I asked for. [The Adobe installation and licensing blog is here][oobe].

[oobe]: http://blogs.adobe.com/OOBE/
[cs4]: http://www.adobe.com/products/creativesuite/