Mogur,

I don't know if a conventional dual-boot setup, where each O/S is installed to a different-lettered drive partition, would work or not. But, that really gets down to the basic issue that I anticipated, worked around, and now succesfully have a dual-boot configuration of XP and Vista, running both PS CS2 and CS3 with single activations of each. I first set up CS2 per what I know about how its activation works, then applied the same approach for CS3 assuming its activation was similar. The only real difference I found was in the location of the product license data folders.

Here are the questions I looked at, and my solutions:

1. An activation hash, tied to a unique identifier for the hard drive itself, is written to a hidden boot sector area of the hard drive. Whether this drive is the system drive or a secondary hard drive if PS happened to be installed to it, I don't know. I'll just keep PS on the same hard drive as the boot partitions, since I've got a large drive.

2. Is the actual path of the PS installation used in any way to generation the activation hash or product license data? I don't know, so I'll do what I can to ensure the path is identical for both operating systems. That is, use a 3rd partition for PS installation that is visible to either O/S. OK, so I'll have a WinXP partition, a WinVista partition, and a programs partition, all on the same hard drive.

3. Similar to the above, what about the path to the product license data files? I doubt that it matters, so long as PS knows where to look for those files at when launched, but I'll not make any assumptions and instead make sure that path is also the same. That is, I'll install each O/S so that it appears to be the C drive when booted. How? Install the 1st O/S (WinXP), then hide its partition while installing the 2nd O/S (WinVista). Hmmm...but will this work with the conventional boot loader used by WinXP or WinVista? Uh oh...and what about the fact that WinVista's boot loader differs from WinXP's? Oh, and didn't I read once that if you follow a conventional dual-boot setup you lose the usability of System Restore? OK....solution....3rd party boot manager (Boot Magic) will be used to control booting to XP or Vista. Once the boot manager has redirected the boot sequence, the boot loader of XP or Vista doesn't even need to know the other O/S exists and the boot environment will seem to be single-boot, and system restore will now work if ever needed.

So, having working out the dual-boot configuration I wanted, I installed PS CS3 to the Programs partition "D" and activated it on Windows XP. Then, I copied the product license data folder, FLEXnet, from C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data, to the D partition that Windows Vista. I then rebooted to Vista and moved the copy of the FLEXnet folder from the D partition to Vista's C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data location. Note, this path is a junction to the actual folder under Vista of C:\ProgramData, used to make Vista look similar to XP although the directory structure is quite different. Copying to this folder may require a change of ownership and permission levels, even if you're an Administrator with UAC disabled.

With the FLEXnet data transferred to Vista, I then installed PS CS3 again to the D partition, effectively overwriting the installation made under Windows XP, so that Vista's registry and common files areas could all be set up as needed for PS CS3. Note that if PS CS3 is ever uninstalled for either O/S, a copy of the installed folder on D should be made beforehand and restored afterwards so that a 2nd uninstall can be cleanly done (dual-boot, shared program headache) for the other O/S without missing file errors being encountered.

After the PS CS3 installation was performed on WinVista and PS CS3 was launched, I saw no prompt for activation, regardless of which O/S was booted. Each O/S Windows Registry had its own copy of the serialization data, while the FLEXnet data files copied between the two O/S ensured consistency with the activation hash in the hidden boot sector area.

There may be an easier and better way to do this, but I think the approach I took provides the most transparent way to achive dual-boot use of PS CS2 and CS3 while also preserving O/S integrity for other operations (such as System Restore). One easy alternative might be simply to activate/deactivate as needed between O/S reboots, but I personally don't like the idea of doing that a lot, wondering if it might ever risk a corruption of activation data in the process. Deactivation also requires an internet connection, which isn't a big deal but is a nuisance if for any reason you don't have that available at the time.

I hope this all makes sense...I'm nearly typing in my sleep.

Regards,

Daryl

nrmsmith

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