Windows 8 seems to be everywhere you look these days – every new computer (with the exception of Apple products, of course) is running Windows 8, and you can easily update your computer to 8 by downloading the new software. And like all new things, Windows 8 has plenty to get excited about.

1. Touch-Screen Design

The first, and most prominent, change for 8 is the touch-screen design of the software. Tiles on the Start screen coordinate to various applications, programs and menus on the computer, and if you have the latest touch screen technology, you can treat your computer monitor much like an oversized cell phone or tablet – just touch and go.

Even if you don’t have the actual touchscreen, you can still enjoy the tiles at your Start menu. Load up your most common programs into the tiles and you can simply click and be where you need to be in no time at all.

If nothing else, Windows 8 should probably win an award on attractiveness. Take a walk through the new computer section at your electronics store, and you’ll see what I mean – screen after screen of cool buttons, pictures and squares. It’s a totally new world from the operating systems that you’ve been used to – or at least it looks that way at first.

Looking at Windows 8 shows you that this is a totally different animal than you’ve used in the past – except perhaps on your smart phone. Your Windows 8 screen does bear a striking resemblance to most smart phones with so many buttons and boxes to choose from. Those buttons and boxes do actually have a purpose, incidentally. They are called “tiles” and they all connect to different things, much like the icons on your old desktop did – only you have more options now.

Live Tiles

Chief among these various tiles you’ll find the “live tiles.” On the Windows 8 screen, some of your tiles stay the same all the time – your Internet Explorer tile, for example, with its distinctive big E. Then, there are other tiles that are constantly changing. The Trending tile, for example, updates frequently to show you what is popular right now – what is “trending” out on the web.

You turn on your computer. You see the message to update and you click on Update Now or Okay – and then you wait. Surely this latest Adobe update can’t take too terribly wrong. But then you see a message. You have an error somewhere in the depths of your machine and in several cases, that conflict is numbered and explained for you in the message.

Fortunately, you can usually solve a conflict problem without too much fuss or muss despite the annoying warning.

Adobe Error 1612 and 1635

There are so many things that can go wrong when you’re trying to update or download Adobe software. The possibilities of error messages are seemingly endless. In this case, you may have seen a message like 1612 …

“The installation source for this product is not available. Verify that the source exists and that you can access it.”

There is also the possibility that you’d get what seems like a totally separate message like …

“This patch package could not be opened. Verify that the patch package exists and that you can access it”.

That is Error 1635, but the two errors are actually the same problem – Adobe is conflicting with another program and the solution is essentially the same for both error messages as well.

How to Fix it

Your first step to resolve either Error 1612 or 1635 is to let Microsoft handle the nuts and bolts of it. The Microsoft troubleshooting wizard, Fixit, is often able to find the solution you need without having to do much drilling on your own. To give Fixit a chance to work, start on this Microsoft Support page dedicated to this sort of error.

Why are there still so many problems with downloading updates?  You’d think that the process of updating programs, system files and drivers would be down pat by now.  Sadly, the problems are ongoing, but with a little problem-solving, we can walk you through the process of tackling Adobe update errors in the 1600 range. 

If you pay attention to the error number, you can get a pretty good idea of what is wrong with your computer. The errors ranging from 1601 to 1603 are usually errors brought about by a conflict of settings: usually those of a program that is conflicting with Adobe or perhaps a problem with a disk storage problem that is configured wrong.

Adobe Update Error 1601

The first error you might encounter in this particular series is straightforward enough. You try to update your machine and it tells you that you’re

"Out of Disk Space"

Your first step here is to figure out which drive your computer is downloading files to. Maybe you’re hard-drive really is full . . . maybe not.

When it’s not my C:\ drive

If you’ve made a change to you profile-setting so that you automatically download to a flash drive or external hard drive, you can change your settings again so that you’re downloading to your C: drive, or main hard drive. Since the primary drive will likely have more space than a removable drive, this will usually fix the problem.

INTERNET EXPLORER | Find the gear icon in the top right corner » View Downloads » Options
GOOGLE CHROME | Find the management icon in corner » Settings » (Show Advanced Settings) » Downloads
MOZILLA FIREFOX | Main Menu » Options » (Options Again) » General Tab » Downloads

To find out more about managing Internet Explorer (or any browser) so that it works the way you want it to, see our guide to Optimizing IE.