Reinstalling LR

[MMarz]

Looks like I am going to have to do a fresh install of LR, though I shiver at the thought..

What is the best way to do a fresh installation so I can avoid losing all my presets and customization? Can I save all my Plugins, identity plate and such or am I starting from scratch?

 

[Brad Snyder]

Michael, it should be completely transparent. Use the Windows Control Panel Add/Remove Software applet to remove Lr. Then, I'd say your best bet is to redownload the V2.3 fresh from Adobe, and just run the install.

All of your data, preferences, templates, presets, etc, (even your serial number) should be preserved. For various reasons, I've done this many, many times, and never lost any data whatsoever.

However, you know about 'best laid plans', so make sure your backups are in order.
The presets, prefs, etc. live in (Windows Vista) - [systemdrive]\Users\[your username]\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Lightroom\ ....various subfolders. It wouldn't hurt to have a backup copy of that tree as well.

Edit: credit Victoria's Ebook for that folder location data.

 

[Victoria Bampton]

That said, I'm not actually sure a fresh install will help, sorry. You're more likely to benefit from moving the preferences file aside so that it rebuilds fresh preferences, and perhaps try a clean 'test' catalog to see if the error is still reproducible.

 

[MMarz]

Thank you all.. I've started with the new preferences file... It did take a little rebuilding of View preferences, Identity plate and some little bits, but it was pretty easy. I've only tried one folder of images through the rename process and it was a clean rename...I'll track and update here.