It would be irresponsible to ignore the elephant in the room.
The "ChingLiu" releases exist in a gray area. While Lightroom 5 is abandonware (no longer sold or officially supported by Adobe), redistributing modified installers technically violates Adobe’s EULA. If you need a legal, perpetual copy of Lightroom, your best bet is to find a second-hand license key for Lightroom 6 (the last perpetual version) or use legal alternatives like Darktable, Capture One, or Affinity Photo. It would be irresponsible to ignore the elephant in the room
If you choose to experiment with older releases, always scan any downloaded executable with up-to-date antivirus software. Community repacks can sometimes be bundled with unwanted extras. It sounds counterintuitive, but there are legitimate reasons
ChingLiu’s work is remembered in retro software forums as clean, functional, and well-packaged compared to many other groups. Their name was a mark of quality in the Windows x64 cracking community around 2012–2016. Today, most of their releases are considered abandonware and are used only in virtual machines or for nostalgic/educational purposes. It sounds counterintuitive
It sounds counterintuitive, but there are legitimate reasons why a photographer might stick with Lightroom 5.6:
Subject: Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5.6 Final (64-bit) - ChingLiu Release Date of Report: October 26, 2023 Status: Legacy Software / Unofficial Distribution