Reinstall older Bridge/ACR

Question

The current Bridge / ACR updates now insist on rebuilding all thumbs and previews.  For me this is awkward (750,000 images on archives).
How can I reinstall an older version of Bridge and ACR so that my archives will not be rebuilt ??
Is it necessary to revert both Bridge and ACR ???

Answer 1

Adobe uses Bridge as a DAM of all of the digital programs that "unite" their programme spectrum.
I stay with my opinion about bridge being not suitable for real use of DAM. Bridge is powerful but it is certainly not as good in DAM as a real dedicated DAM application. As in its turn a real DAM is not as good in tasks for preparing and sorting files etc, here is where the powers of Bridge should come to the rescue, just the right application for the right job
They are oblivious to how users perceive Bridge (at least in my experience).
Sadly enough with large companies there are to many departments and also divided over several countries and even continents. The Bridge team is in China and as long as I can remember has lack of resources and attention of Adobe HQ.
The effort and resources HQ puts in advertising could be spend wiser IMHO and the several layers of management seem to live on a whole other planet then the work floor.
A customer is an idiot that keeps paying money (I'm one of that idiots I'll ave to admit…) and he/she really does not know what is needed, that is in better hands with the bean counters department.
As one of those idiots I try to get the most out of Bridge for my workflow and also try to forget thinking about what it really could have been if those bean counters where not involved but the hard workers on the development floor (some of them are really very nice and do listen but also often feel like Don Quixote) could make their own decisions more freely.
I can't miss Bridge in my daily workflow, even in its current state, CC, including the AOM. I have a single monitor so no need for synchronized windows but feel sorry for those who do. Also the export panel is not missed by me but a perfect example of what is needed and could have grown to key features if only get developed to the limit.
The File Browser presented in PSCS the first Creative Suite edition did have a cache management that was far more superior and faster then current Bridge. I did welcome Bridge for it's promises, the name indicates it should be a bridge between the different suite applications.
Yet since CS4 there have been no significant developments of existing features (yes, cache has been more stable and faster but still causes massive cache files and needs a long time to cache) but even in CC there is still lack of support for certain file types in Bridge that are produced or handled by other Adobe Creative Suite applications
But it seems Adobe Policy to create new features that the advertising department can use for yelling around and the bean counters need for increasing sales.
Mini Bridge is also a perfect example of what we would need. It started promising in CS4 yet it has been screwed severely in CS5 and has not been corrected in CS6 nor CC. I have a very limited use for it but boy, imagine what it could have been if they really wanted it to be. Imagine a panel in Bridge that you can prepare (drop files on, like a collection but then better working) and this same panel would be visible as a panel in all other suite applications so you don't need to switch back and forth between apps. Mini Bridge should act like this but it simply doesn't.
I could go on and on...
We idiots are driven to the creative cloud subscription, which in basic is a good thing because having predictable costs and all applications available with  latest updates is good for commercial users (I'm one of them). But a good willing non professional user that only need PS now pays about twice as much as would be the case with a perpetual license.
If you want the proof of Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen being oblivious here is such shocking example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juM46ny1WhM