EXCHANGE won't connect in Extension Mgr

Question

I'm having the following problems.
1.  Extension Manager wouldn't 'install' a couple of extensions into Photoshop last night.  I can see them in the Extension Manager and they are "enabled', but won't install into the Photoshop/presets/tools, etc.
2.  I couldn't get it to work, so I uninstalled the program and then went to Adobe and reinstalled Extension Manager.  Now Extension Manager's "Exchange" button nor the " File/Go to Adobe Exchange" will even connect.
3.  I've uninstalled and installed several times and still nothing.
Anyone have any suggestions?  I've tried all the "help" buttons on the product, but -- needless to say -- they don't help at all.  There isn't anything there about troubleshooting and trying to get any help from Adobe is useless.  I typically have to go to other web forums to find answers to problems with Adobe.  You would think a company that seemly puts out useful products would be more intune to the issues and problems their customers have.  With that said, if there are any development companies out thinking about building similar software, if great support were provided, you'd have a gold mine of customers.  I'd switch in a heartbeat!
I'm running Windows 7 Home Edition and have Adobe CS5.5.  I'm currently trying to connect with Explorer, but have also tried Chrome.  I'm very frustrated at how difficult this is to try to figure out why it's not working!  Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Answer 1

Yes, those are the exact extensions he's using and that I tried to install
using Extension Manager.  They wouldn't install via Extension Manager, so I
put them into Photoshop's directory on my C drive in the Presents File and
then into each respective category.  They aren't showing in the actual
Photoshop application when I click on the Preset Tool, but I can load them
manually using the LOAD button.  Maybe it's a problem with hos these
particular presents were developed, I don't know.
The EXCHANGE button in Extensions Manager doesn't do anything when I click
on it.  It turns 'orange', but that's it.  It doesn't respond at all.
I very happy to hear that support is being improved.  Adobe has great
products, but when there's a problem, it's extremely difficult to get help.
Also, the on-line manuals aren't very beginner/user friendly.  I actually
printed down the entire manual for Fireworks and thought I'd be able to
figure out how to do some things using the manual.  It was so difficult to
understand -- lack of examples, screen prints, etc. -- that I've found
Lynda.com and some other on-line sources to be much better.  Even YouTube
has some videos that help explain things better.  Maybe Adobe could contract
with Lynda.com and use their info and then take what they do and put it into
a step-by-step manual.  That's really the only thing Lynda.com is missing is
the step-by-step printed info in manual format.  They have the transcripts
available, but a printed "how-to" would be much appreciated.  I think
Lynda.com has some direct connection to Adobe because they're authors
certainly seem to fully understand these products and what they can and
can't do.   I pay monthly for Lynda on their premium plan so I can download
the exercise files and it's well worth it.  If Adobe had something similar
where you could pay a small fee (i.e., $25 to $40) a month for even directly
e-mail or on-line chat for problems, I'd sign up.  The current support
system seems very expensive and there's no indication on how good it is.  I
had mentioned before how good Concrete5's on-line forum is for getting
help -- they're free source, but they're really good.  Just some thoughts.
Again, thank you for taking the time to look at this.  It's great to have
the Adobe Exchange, but it does seem difficult to actually get the items
into the applicable programs and get them working.  Seems like a lot of
steps.  I think one of the most confusing that I've been reading in forums
is that the exchange items are all zipped and I had initially thought that
they would drop into the Extension Manager in zip format and then extension
manager would unzip them, but I guess I was wrong.  I've now found I need to
unzip them, save and then use the 'install' on extension manager.  If that's
even correct.
Maybe some step-by-step with screen prints that we could print off the Adobe
site on how to actually do this step-by-step.  I'm sure once you 'know' what
you're doing and doing it a couple of times, it's really simple.  But
getting to the 'simple' has not been so simple.   -Missy