Adobe does not support the product on Vista. I tried to install the product without success. Two weeks ago I opened a customer service case only to be told that I have to open a technical case, which I would have done if their site had let me.

Just NOT working like it says it does. Very frustrating & a waste of money. Hope you all have better luck...

The bundled programs are pretty good, (have used them on someone elses's computer) but I am having great difficulty getting them to run. I have been talking to Adobe tech support for several weeks and they can't figure it out & tell me to reformat my HD and it should load ok, but I have a new computer(w/ XP SP2, not Vista) and have no trouble installing any other programs. I will have to consider the reformat, maybe I got a bad batch of CDs, will maybe have to send these back.

Please be aware that Premiere Elements 4 will NOT run on any computer processor that does not support the SSE2 Instruction set. The following comes from an Adobe Tech Note: Important: The following CPUs do not have SSE2 support and will not work with Adobe Premiere Elements 3.x: Intel Pentium III, AMD Athlon, AMD Athlon XP, or AMD Athlon XP-M. Elements 6 does NOT have this limitation.

For those that don't feel like searching, though: Photoshop Elements 6 is one of the best versions of the software I've used in years, and I highly recommend it; Premiere Elements 4, on the other hand, is much less stable than the previous version, and ended up being a disappointment. I can still recommend this bundle, but those purchasing it should be aware that Premiere Elements currently has some issues that Adobe needs to address with a patch (a patch that was not available at the time of this writing). Note about system requirements: Premiere Elements is listed as requiring an Intel Pentium 4 or Celeron 1.7GHz (or compatible) processor (note the lack of support for AMD).

I have 15,000 photo's and video's tagged in my catalog, and it's not acceptable that this new version of adobe software can't import correctly the adobe catalogs from software written only 3 years ago. I put in this issues with their tech team, but have not gotten a response. I am resigned to return to Amazon the PSE 6.0.

You eventually learn where the bugs are and develop the habit of saving after every edit you make. Adobe would be well advised to simply focus on bug fixes and polishing the product for an entire release. They keep losing folks, not because the user interface is too complicated, but because the program keeps crashing.

I was unable to determine the performance or value of PE4 because of a major omission in its labeling, which is the requirement for a CPU that has the SSE2 instruction set available. My CPU, while otherwise equivalent to those recommended for the product, does not have the SSE2 instructions, so the software will not load. I have transmitted this information directly to Adobe, and they agree that my evaluation of the labeling omission is accurate.

I tried to install the program into 2 different XP desktop computers and the first one wouldn't even install. The second computer was able to install and when I tried to start the program up, it would crash my system and the computer would restart on its own. I tried re-installing but it didn't work.

I finally figured it out by mistake and this was just in the nick of time for a Christmas present. After two months of "playing" with the program I'm still no expert with it. I haven't read the "Dummies" book so I don't know if it would help or not.

This software is pretty simple but video editing is not like using word application. It is pretty involved and if you are stuck then you must troubleshoot it by yourself as the adobe support is minimalistic. It is recommended that you join user forum if you are serious about this product.

As for me.... I'm going back to Picasa. I just don't have the time to waste on this one.

video editing is not for everyone because program crashes often and you have to troubleshoot the issue yourself and it could be pretty frustrating. I know I have been thru it many times. Always check and download the latest drivers and patches.

I have never used Elements before, so the task of clicking "Help" and reading the online version while attempting to perform that task at hand is, shall we say, less than satisfying. Three stars for the lack of documentation, otherwise a fine product that people can use out-of-the-box in its simplest form. If you are new to the product, plan on spending the money for a book for the in-depth features of your purchase.

It has the potential to be a great program, but it's a roll of the dice weather it will work for you or not. I loaded the program on my machine (a pentium 4, 3 GHz with 1 Gig of ram and a 400 GB H. D.) and I couldn't complete even a basic single clip 12 min movie without it crashing - a total of ten times.

I bought a book "Classroom in a Book" for Photoshop Elements 6 but have not used it yet. I'm still too angry about not being able to use the Photoshop Premiere 4 - which you need to make a slideshow DVD. You can, however, make one on a CD but it says the DVD has better quality.

Decided to upgrade and it wouldn't do the catalog conversion. I even tried downloading an earlier version of photoshop elements, and was able to convert to that but not the 6.0 version. Researched and lots of folks having this same problem.

I do not use premiere for capturing as it is not stable. I use either Window movie make or use camera manufacturer software to eliminate any drop frame scenario.

I cannot comment on Premiere since it would not run on my HP computer. Amazon refunded my money. Adobe ignored my protest that the limitation should appear in bold letters in the advertising literature.

Adobe Premier Elements 4.0 is one of the most unstable, crash-prone software programs I've ever encountered, even on the latest, most-powerful home computer systems. I've run the software on two computers with two operating systems, XP and Vista, and the results have been the same... disappointing.

For those that don't feel like searching, though: Photoshop Elements 6 is one of the best versions of the software I've used in years, and I highly recommend it; Premiere Elements 4, on the other hand, is much less stable than the previous version, and ended up being a disappointment. I can still recommend this bundle, but those purchasing it should be aware that Premiere Elements currently has some issues that Adobe needs to address with a patch (a patch that was not available at the time of this writing). Note about system requirements: Premiere Elements is listed as requiring an Intel Pentium 4 or Celeron 1.7GHz (or compatible) processor (note the lack of support for AMD).

I have 15,000 photo's and video's tagged in my catalog, and it's not acceptable that this new version of adobe software can't import correctly the adobe catalogs from software written only 3 years ago. I put in this issues with their tech team, but have not gotten a response. I am resigned to return to Amazon the PSE 6.0.

I was unable to determine the performance or value of PE4 because of a major omission in its labeling, which is the requirement for a CPU that has the SSE2 instruction set available. My CPU, while otherwise equivalent to those recommended for the product, does not have the SSE2 instructions, so the software will not load. I have transmitted this information directly to Adobe, and they agree that my evaluation of the labeling omission is accurate.

This software is pretty simple but video editing is not like using word application. It is pretty involved and if you are stuck then you must troubleshoot it by yourself as the adobe support is minimalistic. It is recommended that you join user forum if you are serious about this product.

I do not use premiere for capturing as it is not stable. I use either Window movie make or use camera manufacturer software to eliminate any drop frame scenario.

Adobe Premier Elements 4.0 is one of the most unstable, crash-prone software programs I've ever encountered, even on the latest, most-powerful home computer systems. I've run the software on two computers with two operating systems, XP and Vista, and the results have been the same... disappointing.

I opted NOT to purchase the download simply because as a new user of PS Elements, I wanted a manual to learn how to use the product I paid for. Apparently that was too much to expect. Now I see Adobe Press sells a book for Elements 6 & Premiere 4 for the small sum of $64.99 ($40.94 + 5% off for pre-ordering on Amazon) a month after releasing the software.

The part which really sucks is the adobe DVD burning software. I could never make it work right.

It's virtually unusable for moderately complex projects such as a DVD to commemorate a youth sport team's season with a mix of edited videos, pictures, music, and text. I thought Roxio's Easy Media Creator software had a few bugs but it was a dream compared to Adobe's Premier Elements. My first project with Premier Elements will be my last; I'm going back to Roxio.

The only problem I had was that I needed to upgrade my computer to run it. I had an Athlon XP processor which does not support the SSE2 instruction set. This software won't even install if you don't have SSE2.

For those that don't feel like searching, though: Photoshop Elements 6 is one of the best versions of the software I've used in years, and I highly recommend it; Premiere Elements 4, on the other hand, is much less stable than the previous version, and ended up being a disappointment. I can still recommend this bundle, but those purchasing it should be aware that Premiere Elements currently has some issues that Adobe needs to address with a patch (a patch that was not available at the time of this writing). Note about system requirements: Premiere Elements is listed as requiring an Intel Pentium 4 or Celeron 1.7GHz (or compatible) processor (note the lack of support for AMD).

I finally figured it out by mistake and this was just in the nick of time for a Christmas present. After two months of "playing" with the program I'm still no expert with it. I haven't read the "Dummies" book so I don't know if it would help or not.

I bought a book "Classroom in a Book" for Photoshop Elements 6 but have not used it yet. I'm still too angry about not being able to use the Photoshop Premiere 4 - which you need to make a slideshow DVD. You can, however, make one on a CD but it says the DVD has better quality.

Over ten days since opening the technical case and a week since opening a second technical case as the first one seemed to have got lost, still no reply. Adobe claims to respond to installation issues in 24 hours. It has been a week.

Trying to open a version 2 project in version 4 has taken more the 2 hours and it is still not done. I have a Pentium 4, Hyperthreading 2.6HGz, with 3GB RAM. Don't upgrade unless you have a new PC and want to take a risk.

I troubleshot every bit of DVd burning issues and still I do not get a reliable burning. To work around it I create the VOb files on the HD and use NERO to burn it.

This software bundle is primarily for people that want to do video editing, because that's how the product synergy goes - Photoshop Elements is extremely useful for making DVD menu templates and still images that can be used in Premiere, but Premiere Elements offers very little to those primarily working with still images (the still images Premiere can pull from videos tend to flicker and be of low resolution). So, if you're looking to buy this bundle, you need to ask yourself this question: are you interested enough in video editing to pay roughly $50.00 extra for such a program when Windows users get a basic video editor for free (most versions of Vista and XP come with Microsoft Movie Maker, but most people don't realize that they have it installed)?

However, it is not nearly as simple to use as I had hoped. I had to purchase a book to tell me how to use the tools in the photoshop section and still have not completely figured out the premiere section (I need another book for that). It would be nice if the program came with a manual for those of us who do not find such programs to be intuitive.

All in all, it is nice to be able to "one click fix" all of my family photos, and still have the ability to get more powerful tools for the work I bring home with me.

You eventually learn where the bugs are and develop the habit of saving after every edit you make. Adobe would be well advised to simply focus on bug fixes and polishing the product for an entire release. They keep losing folks, not because the user interface is too complicated, but because the program keeps crashing.

This software is pretty simple but video editing is not like using word application. It is pretty involved and if you are stuck then you must troubleshoot it by yourself as the adobe support is minimalistic. It is recommended that you join user forum if you are serious about this product.

I opted NOT to purchase the download simply because as a new user of PS Elements, I wanted a manual to learn how to use the product I paid for. Apparently that was too much to expect. Now I see Adobe Press sells a book for Elements 6 & Premiere 4 for the small sum of $64.99 ($40.94 + 5% off for pre-ordering on Amazon) a month after releasing the software.

I paid $120 for this product. When I received it, I found there was no user guide for the Photoshop Elements or for the Premiere Elements. Come to find out, ADOBE no longer puts the user guides in the box...you have to pay an extra $40 for each one if you want it!!!

The skills do transfer. I was a Microsoft Digital Picture Suite user before they decided not to support Vista. Compared to Digital Picture Suite, Photoshop Element is less intutive to use out of the box.

I found that Adobes Photoshop is not for the novice. I found it not to be very user friendly at all. Their instructions are very good at telling you what all they can do and the program does seem to offer some great features; however, their instructions fall short of telling you how to use their functions.

I would not call myself a power user, but perhaps I am approaching an advanced user.

The bundled programs are pretty good, (have used them on someone elses's computer) but I am having great difficulty getting them to run. I have been talking to Adobe tech support for several weeks and they can't figure it out & tell me to reformat my HD and it should load ok, but I have a new computer(w/ XP SP2, not Vista) and have no trouble installing any other programs. I will have to consider the reformat, maybe I got a bad batch of CDs, will maybe have to send these back.

Adobe Premier Elements 4.0 is one of the most unstable, crash-prone software programs I've ever encountered, even on the latest, most-powerful home computer systems. I've run the software on two computers with two operating systems, XP and Vista, and the results have been the same... disappointing.

Program performance is OK on my 2.4GHz 2GB Windows XP system, but more CPU horsepower would help some editing. My wish list for these programs would start with better documentation.. more examples for newcomers to flatten that learning curve.

The only problem is that these programs are very buggy (premiere more so than photoshop). There is a lot of frustration the first few weeks as you spend a lot of time losing and repeating work due to crashes.

Now how do I use it? The manuals (ha!) that come with are a joke. Info on what the programs CAN do but nothing on HOW to do it!!

And before purchasing the Adobe "Classroom In A Book" published version shown at $41 explore the others available such as "The Missing Manual" by Barbara Brundage - customer reviews are high. Or upcomming "For Dummys" publication. Once I get the manual I decided on and learn how to use the programs effectively I may upgrade my rating, but for now the 2 stars stand because of the lack of documentation.

However, it is not nearly as simple to use as I had hoped. I had to purchase a book to tell me how to use the tools in the photoshop section and still have not completely figured out the premiere section (I need another book for that). It would be nice if the program came with a manual for those of us who do not find such programs to be intuitive.

The bundled programs are pretty good, (have used them on someone elses's computer) but I am having great difficulty getting them to run. I have been talking to Adobe tech support for several weeks and they can't figure it out & tell me to reformat my HD and it should load ok, but I have a new computer(w/ XP SP2, not Vista) and have no trouble installing any other programs. I will have to consider the reformat, maybe I got a bad batch of CDs, will maybe have to send these back.

Please be aware that Premiere Elements 4 will NOT run on any computer processor that does not support the SSE2 Instruction set. The following comes from an Adobe Tech Note: Important: The following CPUs do not have SSE2 support and will not work with Adobe Premiere Elements 3.x: Intel Pentium III, AMD Athlon, AMD Athlon XP, or AMD Athlon XP-M. Elements 6 does NOT have this limitation.

I tried to install the program into 2 different XP desktop computers and the first one wouldn't even install. The second computer was able to install and when I tried to start the program up, it would crash my system and the computer would restart on its own. I tried re-installing but it didn't work.

I cannot comment on Premiere since it would not run on my HP computer. Amazon refunded my money. Adobe ignored my protest that the limitation should appear in bold letters in the advertising literature.

Adobe Premier Elements 4.0 is one of the most unstable, crash-prone software programs I've ever encountered, even on the latest, most-powerful home computer systems. I've run the software on two computers with two operating systems, XP and Vista, and the results have been the same... disappointing.

The only problem I had was that I needed to upgrade my computer to run it. I had an Athlon XP processor which does not support the SSE2 instruction set. This software won't even install if you don't have SSE2.

But I had a problem with Premiere Elements 4 - the video part of it - I could not load them into my computer, because of its Minimum Requirements.

Adobe does not support the product on Vista. I tried to install the product without success. Two weeks ago I opened a customer service case only to be told that I have to open a technical case, which I would have done if their site had let me.

I tried to install the program into 2 different XP desktop computers and the first one wouldn't even install. The second computer was able to install and when I tried to start the program up, it would crash my system and the computer would restart on its own. I tried re-installing but it didn't work.

The Premiere 4 will not install unless you have a "CPU that supports SSE2 Instruction Set". It says nothing about that on the box... you find out when you try to install it onto your PC.

But it just says 'oops, problem, rolling back the install'. Over a week with no response is utterly unacceptable.

The only problem I had was that I needed to upgrade my computer to run it. I had an Athlon XP processor which does not support the SSE2 instruction set. This software won't even install if you don't have SSE2.

Also, and apparently beginning with version 5.0, Adobe has made it more difficult to install "Hidden Power" tools (authored by Richard Lynch - do a search). I use some of these tools extensively and probably would not upgrade PE if I were not able to install them.

I don't care for them but can understand that Adobe wants to reach a wider audience. Beginners will appreciate the "Guided Edit" to help them learn editing steps and there is a more extensive set of photo sharing tools. As far as Premiere Elements goes, the same dark background is used which sometimes makes the text difficult to read.

Also, and apparently beginning with version 5.0, Adobe has made it more difficult to install "Hidden Power" tools (authored by Richard Lynch - do a search). I use some of these tools extensively and probably would not upgrade PE if I were not able to install them.

They are very distracting. If Adobe darkened the background to be less distracting, why would they color the tools? Also, the various versions of a tool are no longer represented in the tool bar.

However, it is not nearly as simple to use as I had hoped. I had to purchase a book to tell me how to use the tools in the photoshop section and still have not completely figured out the premiere section (I need another book for that). It would be nice if the program came with a manual for those of us who do not find such programs to be intuitive.

All in all, it is nice to be able to "one click fix" all of my family photos, and still have the ability to get more powerful tools for the work I bring home with me.

I have 15,000 photo's and video's tagged in my catalog, and it's not acceptable that this new version of adobe software can't import correctly the adobe catalogs from software written only 3 years ago. I put in this issues with their tech team, but have not gotten a response. I am resigned to return to Amazon the PSE 6.0.

This software is pretty simple but video editing is not like using word application. It is pretty involved and if you are stuck then you must troubleshoot it by yourself as the adobe support is minimalistic. It is recommended that you join user forum if you are serious about this product.

video editing is not for everyone because program crashes often and you have to troubleshoot the issue yourself and it could be pretty frustrating. I know I have been thru it many times. Always check and download the latest drivers and patches.

Adobe Premiere Elements 4 was (for my circumstances) a big disappointment. Premiere will simply not handle my video files (*.mod aka mpeg2) without crashing. Every time.

I would never buy Premiere Elements as a stand alone product but for the $50 extra beyond Adobe Elements, it is a good place to start if you are new to video editing.

This software bundle is primarily for people that want to do video editing, because that's how the product synergy goes - Photoshop Elements is extremely useful for making DVD menu templates and still images that can be used in Premiere, but Premiere Elements offers very little to those primarily working with still images (the still images Premiere can pull from videos tend to flicker and be of low resolution). So, if you're looking to buy this bundle, you need to ask yourself this question: are you interested enough in video editing to pay roughly $50.00 extra for such a program when Windows users get a basic video editor for free (most versions of Vista and XP come with Microsoft Movie Maker, but most people don't realize that they have it installed)?

But I had a problem with Premiere Elements 4 - the video part of it - I could not load them into my computer, because of its Minimum Requirements.

For those that don't feel like searching, though: Photoshop Elements 6 is one of the best versions of the software I've used in years, and I highly recommend it; Premiere Elements 4, on the other hand, is much less stable than the previous version, and ended up being a disappointment. I can still recommend this bundle, but those purchasing it should be aware that Premiere Elements currently has some issues that Adobe needs to address with a patch (a patch that was not available at the time of this writing). Note about system requirements: Premiere Elements is listed as requiring an Intel Pentium 4 or Celeron 1.7GHz (or compatible) processor (note the lack of support for AMD).

RAM for XP is 512MB, 1GB for Vista. Photoshop Elements' requirements are slightly less, and are listed as only needing an Intel Pentium 4, Pentium M, or Intel Centrino 1.3GHz (or compatible) processor. Photoshop Elements also requires less RAM, and is listed at 256MB minimum.

If you are just starting out, read the manual or help full books on this product. Do not pay attention to manufacturer's PC requirements for this product.

The bundling of the two products would cause one to assume that the requirements for each program was identical.

But I had a problem with Premiere Elements 4 - the video part of it - I could not load them into my computer, because of its Minimum requirements.