System restore and instant reactivation

MM
Posted By
Mick_Murphy
Dec 30, 2003
Views
1790
Replies
39
Status
Closed
OK, it’s been a while since the series of activation threads and the answer may be there somewhere but there is a lot to wade through to find it.

I’ve just had to do a System Restore on my laptop because of a garbage program I put on causing problems. Photoshop CS required immediate reactivation when I got the machine up and running. I restored to 12 hours ago and have had PSCS on the machine for about 6 weeks. I had no problem reactivating but, as a number of people pointed out before, this could be a big headache if one was not connected to the internet or near a phone.

Now I’ve had to do this instant reactivation before on my desktop machine after I had run the System File Checker (sfc/scannow), which is a bit less drastic than doing a full restore and people seemed surprised that this should be necessary.

So does System Restore always require instant reactivation? Has anybody done a restore without having to instantly reactivate?

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DM
dave_milbut
Dec 30, 2003
was the restore point from before or after you activated? that might be a telling bit of info. i’d expect a reactivate after a restore where the sw hadn’t been activated. if the point was AFTER activation, that’s… disturbing, to say the least.
M
mistermonday
Dec 30, 2003
Mick, this is just another reason for using drive imaging software like PowerQuest’s Drive Image of Norton Ghost. More and more s/w manufacturers are requiring product activation. A 2nd physical hard drive and a copy of PQDI 7 is a very inexpensive way to do a 100% backup in a matter of 3 or 4 minutes. And it only takes 3 or 4 minutes to restore your entire system 100% with no reactivations req’d at all.
Regards, MM
MM
Mick_Murphy
Dec 30, 2003
Dave, the restore was from yesterday, ages after I first activated PS. This is what I find surprising.

mistermonday – I actually bought Norton Ghost last week after I got a present of some money for Christmas but didn’t get around to installing it yet. At least I didn’t have any problems reactivating. I presume I would have to image the entire partition on which the OS and programs are installed in order to restore without reactivation. This would be ok on my main desktop machine as I have two hard drives. However, this could be a problem on the laptop as I would need to buy an external drive just for this purpose unless I do it to CD but I have a 20G partition about a quarter full.
SS
Stephanie_Schaefer
Jan 5, 2004
Mick,

Each time a system restore is performed, the user will likely have to reactivate Photoshop. The reason for this behavior is that a key is checked and updated each time the app is launched. Upon restore, this key will be rolled back to the saved restore state which will prompt the reactivation.

We understand that this can be an inconvience for our customers and will review this behavior for a future release.

–Stephanie
MM
Mick_Murphy
Jan 5, 2004
Thanks for the reply Stephanie. This is not a problem for me at the moment as reactivation is as easy as starting up the machine. My main concern is that a system restore would be necessary on a laptop when one is in a remote area without access to phone or internet. This scenario is actually very feasible for photographers.
MA
mutator_accessor
Jan 5, 2004
I can’t believe this…. I was specifically told before I purchased CS, that I could reinstall PSCS on the same machine without going through activation again…. I AM VERY UNHAPPY ABOUT THIS. If I could return CS for a refund I would do it RIGHT NOW.

I am now reverting back to PS7 as of now. I just cannot deal with Adobe’s activation policy further.

Until Adobe can come up with a way without completely screwing over the honest users of your software I will use PS7 and migrate to another product for future upgrades.

Unbelievable!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Goodbye. Don’t even bother replying to this because I have no further need to check this forum.
G
graffiti
Jan 5, 2004
Don’t even bother replying to this because I have no further need to check this forum.

Ok.

Wait. Does that count as a reply?
SS
Stephanie_Schaefer
Jan 5, 2004
I’ll post a reply on the off chance mutator decides to read it.

The issue under discussion in this thread is in regards to having to reactivate after a system restore, not an app reinstall. You can reinstall PS CS on a system without having to reactivate, the uninstall offers the option of keeping or removing the activation code.
M
mistermonday
Jan 6, 2004
Mick, re your laptop, if you partition your single drive into two partitions, with your OS and apps on C, then you can write and restore an image from to/from your D partition, so long as you do not have a complete hardware failure. Also you can easily image your drive (or partitions) across a home netwwork to another computer using either Ghost or Drive Image. FYI, I just moved to DI7 and find it is way faster and more flexibel than Ghost. You can image to multiple CDs or dump the file onto a singlr DVD if you have a DVD writer. You can restore from CDs or DVD from a remote location directly from the CD that DI comes on. PowerQuest technology was so neat that Symantec Corp (the author of Ghost) purchased Powerquest in December.
Finally, if you restore from a true image, you should not require any reactivation as your system and everything on it will be a complete snapshot in time of how everything was on your PC when it was imaged.
Rgds, MM
D
dpick
Jan 6, 2004
I agree whole-heartedly with mistermonday on using Drive Image. I find Drive Image absolutely essential. I partition my HD with around 8 gigs or so for the OS. I install all drivers and essential programs on this partition and image it about once a week to another partition (and sometimes another HD for extra security). This has saved me many times from a variety of maladies that can muck up an OS. I, too, prefer Drive Image 7 since I can image my OS while I’m using my computer. I have used Ghost, too, but I find Drive Image more "user friendly."
R
rickhutson
Jan 6, 2004
So you’re supposed to image your HD every time you install or change software on your PC – Uh…….. isn’t that what system restore is supposed to do? I know and understand it’s a backup but it’s another Adobe hoop to jump through that it totally unnecessary. Now what would someone do if they used PSCS on a laptop and there was a chance they would not have INTERNET access and HAD to be able to use the app?
Y
YrbkMgr
Jan 6, 2004
Telephone, Rick.
GH
Grass_Hopper
Jan 6, 2004
Finally, if you restore from a true image, you should not require any reactivation as your system and everything on it will be a complete snapshot in time of how everything was on your PC when it was imaged.
I would be interested to hear from Stephanie (or other Adobe person) on this. Since the system restore seems to cause some headache with regards to activation/reactivation, would an image restore cause the same issue? As Rick points out, in theory, they are supposed to be roughly equivalent. And yes, if one were to use restore, for some reason, out in the field, they might well be stuck behind a rock and a hard place. For that reason alone, I would keep version 7 on my system.

For the record, I have Ghost and think it’s a wonderful program and it has made reformat/restores to my system painless. I have no fears for installing programs for testing etc, knowing I can put my system to pristine condition in as little as 10 minutes 🙂 Hmmm, I will have to look into DI, as I am ready to upgrade my imaging software.
DM
dave_milbut
Jan 6, 2004
As Rick points out, in theory, they are supposed to be roughly equivalent.

but in practice, they’re not. SR tracks registry and important system files. Programs like ghost do the whole drive.
Y
YrbkMgr
Jan 6, 2004
Right. You ever notice that system restore says "this will not affect your data files or settings" or something to that effect. Well, Ghost and like products, mirror the drive, so everything is reverted.
R
rickhutson
Jan 6, 2004
I know what each do. But why should you have to do an image each time you install an app – just to appease the CS Gods? If you install several apps and 1 doesn’t work or causes problems then what? You’re supposed to save an image for each install? System restore is now useless. And what’s the point anyway? Adobe must be aware the hackers will have it in 30 days or less. So that 30 days is going to save them? Since this is a beginning where’s it going to end?
MM
Mick_Murphy
Jan 6, 2004
mistermonday (thanks for the advice) or any of the other knowledgeable ones: is there any difference in terms of what is restored between cloning the entire OS partition and creating an image? In other words, do the activation codes or whatever they are called for CS, WinXP, OfficeXP which are written to those secret shady places on the hard drive get captured by a Ghost image or does one need to clone the entire partition to save having to reactivate after restoring. There are these two options in Ghost and the manual is very thick and boring.
S
seanlawless
Jan 6, 2004
As far as using Drive Image to avoid re activation, this just isnt true. I literally just finished a re install of an Image I saved 3 days ago and I was required to reactivate. Photoshop CS was originally activated over a month ago!!
I work out at sea with little or no access to internet or phones. I will be bringing Photoshop 7.01 as a contingency.

Sean
MM
Mick_Murphy
Jan 7, 2004
So does that mean you need to clone the whole partition which would presumably copy everything on the disk rather than just do a back-up image?
S
seanlawless
Jan 7, 2004
I backed up my entire "C" drive partion to my external hard drive using Drive image 7.0 I re-installed the image and got the activation request. It says there have been some "hardware changes" since the last activation.
Could it be comparing the old image with the current date and detecting changes??? I’m obviously looking for answers myself more than I am trying to answer yours. Reason being…I just dont know.

Sean
SS
Stephanie_Schaefer
Jan 7, 2004
Sean,

Restoring from an image will require a reactivation if Photoshop has been launched after the image is created. The only scenario that I can think of that *might* work would be imaging the drive + boot sector, which apparently can be a bit tricky – big might though as I haven’t tried it.
M
mistermonday
Jan 7, 2004
Mick, clone a partition to another partition, or a drive to another drive is used when you actually want to duplicate a drive or partition. For example when you are building a new computer or wanting to clone many computers with the same s/w load drive to drive. When you create an image file, that file can be stored as a stand alone file on different media and with other data. Like data files, they can be moved around from place to place. When you restore a partition or a drive from that image file, Ghost or DI recreates the mirror of the drive from that image file.
As to Sean’s comment about the reactivation after imaging, as long as no hardware has been changed, when the system boots back up after a re-image, it should not be any different than if the computer had been off for a minute or a day or a week. When I have some time, I will try a recovery from a stored image to verify that PSCS does not require re-activation. It just would not make sense. It would also require Adobe to have gone to some unusual effort to bypass the way true imaging s/w functions.
If Sean is correct, then Adobe will be hearing a rare earful from me. Regards, MM
S
seanlawless
Jan 7, 2004
I would like to post the results of yet another test.
1. I made an image of my C drive with Drive Image 7.0
2. I started Photoshop CS immediately after image was created.
3. Restarted windows directly into Drive Image restore program.
4. Completed restore, started windows, started PSCS and was given this message "Your computers configuration appears to have changed since the last time this product was activated. To continue using this product, please click OK to activate it again for your new system configuration, or click Cancel to exit."

I am posting this NOT in hopes of finding a solution but to confirm what I have posted previously.

Sean
MM
Mick_Murphy
Jan 7, 2004
Thanks again for the advice mistermonday. I usually have no problem reading manuals but Ghost is on the dry side.

This is all very interesting. From what Stephanie says, PS must write to the boot sector when it’s launched so when the image file is reinstated PS recognises that something has changed. The only non-risky solution for anybody travelling to places where phone or internet are unavailable is to keep an older version on for safety. This is fine if one has an older version but what about people who have bought CS as their first version. This definitely needs a rethink from Adobe.
IL
Ian_Lyons
Jan 7, 2004
Mick,

This definitely needs a rethink from Adobe.

I think that’s what Stephanie was saying, albeit not in those exact words.
M
mistermonday
Jan 7, 2004
Sean, one key question I have is: When you created the image with DI, was Photoshop CS application open or closed? That might make a difference. Even so, DI works differently than Ghost does, with DI creating an image while Windows is still active and Ghost can do it from a Ghost Boot disk bypassing the OS. This will require a couple of experiments. If the Activation protection was designed to defeat Imaging s/w, then Adobe or its 3rd party partner has gone way overboard.
There is a difference between protection form casual s/w pirates and over-protection that impacts other applications and workflows. If every s/w manufacturer does this, it will render every helpless and defenseless when the usual viruses and system corruptions occur. PS is a very important application on m y computer, but it is not the only one and not everyone’s computer and work flow was buiolt and designed around PS. Looks like we need some verification and clarification from Adobe.
When I get some experiment time I will play with DI and Ghost images. Rgds, MM
MM
Mick_Murphy
Jan 7, 2004
Ian

Stephanie said "We understand that this can be an inconvience for our customers and will review this behavior for a future release."

This is obviously an uncommital and unofficial statement and shows that Adobe are aware of the potential problems but maybe you can read between the lines better than me. Personally I am not worried about it as I won’t be ditching PS6 from my laptop.

But I do think that this could be more than an inconvenience for people who have uninstalled or who do not have previous versions. It could be anything up to a complete disaster for a professional photographer for example. I am truly surprised that Adobe have released the greatest computer program ever with this activation model without considering the potential consequences in some situations. This should be right up front in the documentation: if you use System Restore, you will have to reactivate this product and you will not be able to restore from an image file without reactivating. Maybe I missed it. It’s been known to happen.

And I should say that I am not one of the anti-activation clan nor do I have any problems with PSCS in terms of performance or behaviour not do I have any axe to grind with Adobe. I have just taken an interest in this because it is one of those interesting things.
Y
YrbkMgr
Jan 7, 2004
From what I understood, the activation process writes to an "undocumented sector" of the hard drive. If that’s true, can you be certain that Drive Image or any like products are mirroring that undocumented sector as well as the rest of the drive? In my limited experience, it does not.

When the mirror is put back onto the drive, I don’t know that we know if it would overwrite that undocumented sector – so this is a long winded way of saying, I’m not sure EXACTLY what drive imaging does, specifically in regards to reads of that undocumented sector, or HOW it restores the image in terms of what it does and what it does not preserve. It would respect partitions, but perhps not the sector in question.

So if that’s true, and the sector is not captured along with the drive mirror, it seems that it may be possible for photoshop to think that there was a hardware change because of the way the image was restored, in regards to that undocumented sector. Further, it’s possible that different drive imaging products may perform differently in that regard.

I post this only as conjecture, save for the fact that I know that in some situations, a drive imaging product will not capture some non-standard portions of hard drives.

Peace,
Tony
SB
Scott_Byer
Jan 8, 2004
For those using System Restore to "undo" the installation of bad software, you *really* need to rethink that plan. If you are regularly installing questionable software that causes things on your machine to go south, you really need to consider putting together a sandbox environment using Virtual PC.

System Restore isn’t really industrial strength enough to get you out of such jams regularly – there is all sorts of damage that it might not be able to undo (in addition to the activation issues).

Tony,

Ghost should be configurable to capture all necessary information for a full drive image. I haven’t experimented myself yet – I think someone here is looking into this.

-Scott
M
mistermonday
Jan 8, 2004
According to Stephanie Schaefer responding to the question in thread of this same subject, you should be able to fully restore an image from Drive Image or Ghost if you include in the image and in the restore, the master boot record. I have seen an option box appear in Drive Image 7 asking if I want to restor the MBR. I wil try it out when I have some spare time.
GoldFrost "Photoshop Activation Issue" 1/8/04 10:34am </cgi-bin/webx?13/0> Regards, MM
MM
Mick_Murphy
Jan 8, 2004
Talking about questionable software, I am seeing some very strange behaviour on both my machines with Norton Antivirus 2003 over the last few days. It is taking ages to open Word 2002 and Word documents and it keeps trying to access the internet every time I open Word. Won’t bother going into the details but at least it’s not affecting PS.
RM
Rick Moore
Jan 9, 2004
Turn off the "Enable Office Plug-in" and disable "Auto Protect" One or both of these will cause delays with Word

Talking about questionable software, I am seeing some very strange
behaviour on both my machines with Norton Antivirus 2003 over the last few days. It is taking ages to open Word 2002 and Word documents and it keeps trying to access the internet every time I open Word. Won’t bother going into the details but at least it’s not affecting PS.
MM
Mick_Murphy
Jan 9, 2004
Thanks Derrick. I did disable Auto Protect but it had no effect. I’m just home from work and was going to try what you suggested but both machines seem to be back to normal.

It’s all very weird. When I tried to open Word or any Word document (no problem with Access, Excel or Outlook)last night, Norton Firewall came up with "navw32.exe is trying to access the internet" which is a message I’ve never seen before and I’ve been using NIS for over a year. I tried blocking and permitting without effect. Both Firewall and Nav were extremely slow to open as well. I have no idea what was going on as I have Auto Live Updates turned off but had done manual updates a few days ago.

Furthermore, I have a second OS partition on my desktop which I haven’t used for over a month and I got the same "navw32.exe is trying to access the internet" on it as well and the same behaviour with Word and NIS so it is not a dodgy recent update. All very strange. I hope it stays away.
DS
Dave Smith
Jan 9, 2004
On Fri, 9 Jan 2004 10:31:57 -0800, wrote:

Thanks Derrick. I did disable Auto Protect but it had no effect. I’m just home from work and was going to try what you suggested but both machines seem to be back to normal.

It’s all very weird. When I tried to open Word or any Word document (no problem with Access, Excel or Outlook)last night, Norton Firewall came up with "navw32.exe is trying to access the internet" which is a message I’ve never seen before and I’ve been using NIS for over a year. I tried blocking and permitting without effect. Both Firewall and Nav were extremely slow to open as well. I have no idea what was going on as I have Auto Live Updates turned off but had done manual updates a few days ago.

Furthermore, I have a second OS partition on my desktop which I haven’t used for over a month and I got the same "navw32.exe is trying to access the internet" on it as well and the same behaviour with Word and NIS so it is not a dodgy recent update. All very strange. I hope it stays away.

navw32 is a part of norton anti virus that goes out on it’s own and looks for updates. If you just go and double click on navw32.exe it brings up the Screen for Norton Anti Virus (system works) I also found this information about the program in NAV help…….

If you are working in a DOS window (for example, writing a script or code), you can start Norton AntiVirus while still in DOS.

To start Norton AntiVirus from DOS
At the DOS prompt, type CD\Windows\Program Files\Norton AntiVirus\ or the path of the directory where Norton AntiVirus is located. Press Enter.
At the prompt, type NAVW32
Press Enter.
GH
Grass_Hopper
Jan 9, 2004
Mick,

If it is any consolation to you, I had the *exact* same problem! My system was slow as slow could be as a result. I figured it was related to some spyware my kids had inadvertantly installed on my system, but what you describe is what I was experiencing.

I did note that things seem to correct themselves pretty much on their own. I didn’t take any changes today though, in case there was a virus that I missed etc. I reformatted and restored my Ghost image and am back up and running.

I would be interested to see if anyone else had a similar issue. I noticed my problem about 4am, January 8. I turned the machine off, went to bed and assumed that the reboot would fix the issue. It did not. I checked again about 3:30am January 9 and all seemed to be okay. I reformatted anyway!! 😉
MM
Mick_Murphy
Jan 9, 2004
Grass Hopper
That’s really interesting. I really doubt that it is spyware because absolutely nothing new went on either system over the last few days. I’m very cautious about what I put on my machines. I think it is something to do with Norton itself.

The fact that it happened on my D partition which has not been used at all for over a month seems to strongly suggest this. The "navw32.exe is trying to access the internet" thing started as soon as I tried to open Word. This was a backup OS I installed when I was having hardware problems but I only used it for a few days. It doesn’t have the latest Norton updates installed unlike the C and the laptop.

The other weird thing was that I did a few system restores on my C partition back as far as Monday when Word was definitely working normally but it still happened.

However, it does seem to have totally cleared now. NAV and NIS are opening at normal rate and Word and Word files are also back to normal.
MM
Mick_Murphy
Jan 10, 2004
Grass Hopper

I found the answer on the Microsoft forum. It was a Norton problem. A bit twisted.

< http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/sharedtech.nsf/docid/20 04010810205113>
RM
Rick Moore
Jan 10, 2004
Thanks for that info, Mick. One of our machines at work may have had this problem.

I found the answer on the Microsoft forum. It was a Norton problem. A bit
twisted.
< http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/sharedtech.nsf/docid/20 04010810205113>
GH
Grass_Hopper
Jan 10, 2004
Mick,

thanks for that link. It was interesting because you and I *did* have the exact same problems with Word and the navw32.exe file. I happened to restore my ghost image after they fixed their issues, it would seem.

I really didn’t think it was spyware, but since my kids use my computer, I didn’t want to rule it out!

Hope it doesn’t happen again! 😉

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