Photoshop CS Activation

SG
Posted By
Sidney_Gravitz
Aug 4, 2004
Views
1727
Replies
58
Status
Closed
I currently have Photoshop 6, purchased in the complete version, and Photoshop 7, purchased in the upgrade version. I am awaiting delivery of the upgrade version of Photoshop CS. I plan to uninstall my previous versions before installing CS. When the CS installation/setup routine asks for my previous version Serial Number, are there any considerations in specifying the Serial Number for the original full version 6 vs the upgrade version 7?

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Easy-to-use drag-n-drop Photoshop scene creator with more than 2800 items.

B
BobLevine
Aug 4, 2004
The installer is more likely to ask for you to insert a CD from an earlier version. You can use either.

Bob
DP
Daryl_Pritchard
Aug 4, 2004
Sidney,

As your question doesn’t really say anything about activation, yet your topic title does, I just thought I’d offer a few suggestions and a bit clarification about activation if you aren’t sure what it entails.

First, as Bob said, you can use either the PS6 full or the PS7 upgrade CD as the qualifying media when performing the PS CS update. The only serial number for which you will be prompted is that of PS CS itself, even for the upgrade.

Second, unless you’re shy of the necessary disk space to support both PS CS and PS7, I strongly encourage you to keep PS7 installed. The advantage in that, is you that if you are productively using PS7 and find anything about PS CS slows you down (if not the performance of the application itself), then you can always fall back and use PS7 when times are short. Also, some, such as Bob, have reported that PS CS is quite sluggish when maniuplating very large files; if you also work with large files, then you may find using PS7 more productive.

Third, there are random problems when you may find yourself prompted to reactivate PS CS, else not be able to continue using it. Typically, the automatic reactivation over the internet works fine, and a phone call alternative while slower, is also reasonably quick to accomplish. However, if you ever encounter a situation where reactivation is denied (when it shouldn’t be), then you will have to contact Adobe Tech Support for assistance. If outside normal support hours, you may find yourself waiting until a day or two later to try again, in which case having another version of PS available to use may be essential.

Activation itself is no big deal…you proceed through the installation of PS CS and can either immediately activate the software, or take advantage of a 30-day grace period, after which time you must activate the software to continue using it. Activation is painlessly and quickly accomplished over the internet and also may be done by phone, if less quick. Reactivation is a matter of something being detected about your PS CS installation where the license manager detects something has changed about your system such that it presumes you are now running PS CS on a different computer. While you may install PS CS legitmately on a 2nd computer, once that is done, that’s it…unless you go through Adobe to have one of your activation records removed such as when you’re replacing a computer with a new one, and thus allowing activation to be performed for it.
Both computers on which PS CS has been activated, can be reactivated an indefinite number of times without concern for a loss of licensed use.

Again, there are problems with PS CS, in that the license manager has been found to prompt for reactivation even when there has been no hardware change. One such reason is if you ever change your system time by a significant amount (such as moving it back a year), but I’m not sure what the threshold is. Small corrections of the time should have no impact. Given the 30-day grace period, time is an obvious factor where activation is concerned, but it should never be a factor in reactivation, yet that is apparently not the case and erroneous prompts for reactivation may occur as the result; Adobe seems aware of this yet it is unkown whether they are attempting to provide a fix, particularly since only random users appear affected. Use of System Restore in Windows XP, or the use of a drive imaging utility may (not always) also impact reactivation, although that too should never occur.

Perhaps this will head off any other questions or concerns you might encounter as you proceed with your installation and use of PS CS.

Enjoy,

Daryl
SG
Sidney_Gravitz
Aug 4, 2004
Thank you for your responses. I will leave PS 7 installed until I am satisfied that CS is functioning in a well behaved manner.
QP
Q_Photo
Aug 5, 2004
I say leave version 7 on. Don’t take it off. Just in case the wind blows out of the west and you need to REACTIVATE. And may not be able to REACTIVATE as soon as you would Like. It has happened to others.
B3
Bikeracer_3
Aug 5, 2004
This whole activation process has been a royal pain.

As a photographer that had CS install on the laptop for field work. I found that when at an location shoot that CS didn’t work. When I returned to the office and plugged the computer into my network to down load files I thought I’d try it again. It worked!

Now I found that I can only use it when connected to the network. Reinstalled CS without being connected to network. Guess what? It worked in the field but not on network. Now I have to burn a CD-ROM to transfer files.

Great workflow huh!

I had to go back to PS7 on the laptop. Anyone have any ideas or suitable workflow?

Terry
RK
Rob_Keijzer
Aug 5, 2004
Bikeracer,

I wish your alias was: GiverOfSufficientSystemInfo.

Rob
CC
Chris_Cox
Aug 6, 2004
BikeRacer – how did CS fail to work?

Most likely your laptop is looking for some resource on the network.

Photoshop itself doesn’t care if it’s connected or not.
KY
kyle_yates
Aug 7, 2004
To Adobe

I really hate to make a complaint especially against such a terrific program as Adobe CS — but PLEASE ADOBE could you change the Activation mechanism so you don’t have to re-activate after the following conditions. (I’m 100% against Piracy so not against activation in principle provided it’s implemented in a reasonably sensible manner rather than in "paranoid" mode).

1) I regularly take a "System Dump" or Image copy of my Windows partition using a program like DRIVE IMAGE or NORTON GHOST — in case of a crash or whatever. This means I can restore my Windows partition very quickly in case I’ve had a computer crash, messed something up, got some "unremoveable" Spyware on my system etc etc. Now If I do a restore to the SAME computer Adobe CS prompts you for re-activation — not even a warning — you have to activate then and there — no good if you are out in the field with no Internet connection and out of Landline / Mobile phone range either — This cost me a WEEK of not being able to use the product –and nearly cost me the assignment — fortunately I had a backup version of Photoshop 7.

2) Moving THE SAME HARDWARE around on the same computer also wants re-activation. I wanted to swap the position of DVD drives on the motherboard (IDE 0 / 1 ) and change from Master to Slave for better performance. I really shouldn’t have to reactivate for these type of reasons — It’s THE SAME HARDWARE ON THE SAME MACHINE.

In both the above cases WINDOWS itself didn’t require re-activation.

I’d like to suggest that ADOBE’s reactivation procedure should work similarly to Windows — and especially after a system restore even if they can’t change the activation procedure should at least allow the program to continue for a limited time before stopping. If you are a Pro photographer out in the field you can’t always be on the Net or have access to a phone — and Laptops DO crash.

Thanks .[/b]

Hopefully a lot of people will see this as a much more reasonable method of implementation.

Cheers
-K
L
LenHewitt
Aug 7, 2004
Kyle,

As you have found this Topic I’ve deleted your duplicate topic
KL
Katherine_Lawson
Aug 7, 2004
I agree Kyle. You’ve said exactly what we all feel about the activation scheme that Adobe has chosen. No matter how bad Microsoft is, their activation is much much better than the one provided by Macrovision.

Professional programs shouldn’t keep professionals from doing their jobs.
DP
Daryl_Pritchard
Aug 7, 2004
….nor ANY licensee from using the program itself.
DM
dave_milbut
Aug 7, 2004
as i said above, adobe has already acknowleged the problems with reactivation and has said they’re working on it for the next release. i suggest anyone seriously interested in this issue do a forum search for "activation" and look at the threads around oct. 2003, when CS first appeared. there were dozens of multi hundred post threads in the first couple of months and many had a lot of input from the adobe team.
DP
Daryl_Pritchard
Aug 7, 2004
Dave,

Forgive me if I’m wrong, but while I’ve not gone back and searched the old threads (of which I’m sure my comments were a part), I don’t recall Adobe ever saying anything about "working on it for the next release". I do know however that they certainly did acknowledge some of the reported problems as things they needed to investigate. Stephanie Schaeffer and Scott Byer have been the most helpful in discussing the problems with reactivation, but I think it remains very questionable to what extent Adobe is concerned about reactivation problems at present. In my opinion, this is not a "next release" issue but rather something that should be fixed now, via an update patch. Perhaps Adobe just figures those PS CS licensees who really are annoyed by the problem will just seek out and use a 3rd-party solution that can readily be found in public distribution. It seems a bit of a paradox that in their efforts to thwart piracy, the mechanism for doing that is flawed enough that legitimate users of PS CS may still seek out a 3rd-party solution. If there exists the talent outside of Adobe to provide a solution, then surely Adobe has equally talented people who could not only provide a solution, but make it one which adheres to their licensing intent.

Daryl
DM
dave_milbut
Aug 7, 2004
I don’t recall Adobe ever saying anything about "working on it for the next release".

I think it was steph, could be wrong though. Maybe it was just "working on it, but it’s not going to be an update for this release".

In my opinion, this is not a "next release" issue but rather something that should be fixed now, via an update patch.

still, that’s the way (above) i remember it. no patch, afaicr.
QP
Q_Photo
Aug 7, 2004
IF what Dave says is true about no activation patch for CS, Version 8 something is very wrong at Adobe. Adobe now sounds like my parents when I was young. “Because I said so, that’s why.” It didn’t seem fair then and it certainly doesn’t seem fair now. Again, I love Photoshop, I don’t mind activation, I hate REACTIVATION.
RH
r_harvey
Aug 7, 2004
This is from the "Activation" thread, from September 29, 2003. I couldn’t find anything from Stephanie Schaefer, addressing possible changes in policy in future upgrades.

Drew McManus – 044:24pm Oct 2, 2003 Pacific

Hello all:
I just wanted to let you know that we at Adobe have taken note of your activation comments and value your feedback.

We have done extensive research, including a broad market test, that indicates activation can be an effective method to curb the most common forms of piracy. We have worked hard over the past year to ensure that we can implement activation with minimal inconvenience to our customers.

The following addresses some of the questions I’ve seen here:

Number of Activations:
Our End User License Agreement still allows you to install Adobe software on two machines. The activation system permits these two installs.

Flexibility:
The system has been built by taking our customer’s common usage patterns into account. The activation strategy has been designed to accommodate replacing machines, reconfiguring hardware, uninstalling and reinstalling an application, and many other situations that do not require the need to call or notify Adobe.

In addition, there is a 30-day grace period allowing full use of the software for up to 30-days before activation is required. This helps ensure activation does not get in the way of getting work done.

Customer Service:
Our customer service reps have been thoroughly trained on activation. They are well-equipped to handle customer inquiries, answer questions about the terms of the End User License Agreement, and solve activation-related problems.

Thanks again for the feedback. Your input is important.

Drew McManus
Adobe Systems Incorporated

dave milbut – 08:59am Oct 7, 2003 Pacific

<http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104_2-5087695.html>

Zdnet on activation. Drew McManus (Adobe, who commented in this thread) makes a comment in there too. Especially see the talkbalk forums. People everywhere, not just photoshop win users, are saying pretty much the same thing.

Scott Byer – 03:19pm Oct 31, 2003 Pacific (#670 of 716)

The crack isn’t completely successful since it kills the control key shortcuts. Also note that even if it does successfully get cracked, it does stop those gutless, cowardly theives from registering under other people’s serial numbers, getting tech support, and otherwise costing legitimate users time and/or money.

Cracks also usually come with viruses and/or trojan horses, so people should really consider if their stealing the software is really going to be worth the trouble.

The Mac side of the activation product wasn’t ready in time. The playing field will get levelled.

-Scott

Scott Byer – 01:31pm Nov 3, 2003 Pacific

Activation became necessary because Photoshop 7 was very, very pirated. It accounts for the largest single chunk of bandwidth on many of the peer sharing networks, and in at least one case, the majority of the total bandwidth used. I’m under no illusions that activation will stop piracy – locks keep honest people honest – but I don’t think many of you realize how bad the problem has become.

Activation isn’t about violating privacy. Call up and activate by phone if you’re really worried about it. It isn’t about stopping you from upgrading or even replacing a machine – provisions are made for that. Ghosting back a partition shouldn’t be a problem either, as it still will be recognized by the same machine and should re-activate with no problem.

For those who were "slightly" violating the license before and are now having issue with activation enforcing that, the small volume licensing program is ready for you
(http://www.adobe.com/store/general/openoptions/main.jhtml). If you want to provide feedback that you think there should be a shrinkwrapped 5 license version or some other family/small-shop style licensing outside of the volume licensing program, visit <http://www.adobe.com/activation/main.html> and use the feedback link.

You *know* I wish it weren’t necessary. But it is. We’ll continue to look for less intrusive mechanisms.

-Scott

Scott Byer – 07:11pm Nov 3, 2003 Pacific

wrote in message

That’s as logical as saying: "We had to close the road because too many people were speeding."

You do realize this is done quite a lot for neighborhood streets, right? And the analogy is wrong, anyway. It’s more like putting in rumble strips or permanent "Your Speed" signs.

How about lobbying against file sharing services?

That’s worked so well for the music industry, hasn’t it?

How about closing down the Web sites that give away other people’s intellectual property?

Yeah, like we can really close down a site out of China. (Like we should even be able to!) Nope, not workable.

How about hunting down thieves?

Already doing that. It’s not enough.

And it’s not about trusting the honest person. It’s about reminding them, gently, of the licensing they agreed to. I’m sorry if some of you are really trying to avoid seeing it like that. The point is activation has already had a good effect – it’s thrown doubts about the solidity of the cracked version into the minds of the casual pirate, because it’s no longer the case that you can download exactly what was in the box, you have to rely on some Johnny-in-the-basement unethical hacker to patch in some shakey code. Is 3 seconds of your time really worth that?

So, no, I don’t believe "anyone" who wants to get around activation will. I believe the serious pirate and the high school kids will, because they have nothing to lose if parts of the program don’t work right or it crashes more often. But there is a large class of users who will decide that it’s simply not worth the risk.

I don’t think any of us can tell yet if this will be worth the trouble. I think Adobe has taken a much better tack on it than some of the companies that have gone before us. I know that there are going to be some users who don’t think you could ever get it "right" (short of removing activation) – there’s no pleasing some people, and that’s just what we have to live with.

But I’m not willing to put naked bits out there anymore. Bandwidth is too cheap, and the music industry p—– away the opportunity to educate young people about intellectual property, and too many countries (China) refuse to put any teeth into IP protection. In an unconnected world, you could get away with it – the spread of naked bits was slow enough that the losses were tolerable, and any sort of activation scheme was too painful. In a connected world, it’s the opposite.

-Scott
RH
r_harvey
Aug 7, 2004
Wow! That September 29 Activation <http://www.adobeforums.com/cgi-bin/webx?14@@.2ccd90cb/0> thread still exists, somewhere!
Y
YrbkMgr
Aug 7, 2004
You have to think of it like this…

Activation is a corporate decision, period. It isn’t going to change because the amount of pain caused by it is no where NEAR the pain that was caused by the Intuit snafu, and the ramifications are far less reaching, although not unimportant.

Point is, it’s a corporate decision and there isn’t enough "pain" to reverse it. The loss of existing or potential customers is less than the loss due to piracy, according to actuarial style number crunching. True or not, that’s where Adobe’s at with it.

The development and product management teams now have to turn a lemon into a lemonade, so to speak, in as much as they have to make Activation more seamless, and they need to include a DEactivation scheme so that users can freely port their license from machine to machine while preserving the integrity of the license.

Therefore, IMO, the tasks are reasonably clearly defined for the Adobe Teams to make activation "work better". Everything we have seen from Adobe thus far indicates that this is their intention. We won’t really know until the next release.

Just my two cents.

Peace,
Tony
KP
Ken_Pratt
Aug 7, 2004
I am a hobbyist and first purchased Photoshop version 3 and then every upgrade since. Activation has my full support if it works and can increase Adobe’s revenue to the extent that customers’ benefit from lower prices. (Always the optimist!!)

Part of my hobby is to give demonstrations of Photoshop and to run workshops for camera clubs. At one such demonstration I had a problem with my PC, which I knew could be cleared using the restore facility. Unfortunately I could not reactivate as the demo was in a hall with no Internet or telephone. Although I could continue using 7 the whole point of the demo was to show the wonderful new features of CS.

When I got home I realized that Premiere Pro 1.5 also needed reactivation. As this is a very recent release it does indicate that a solution to these problems has not yet been found.

Sometimes one of my two desktop PC’s is tied up converting video avi files from my home movies to mpeg2 so I previously had Photoshop on both for flexibility and also on my laptop for portability. No one else in my house can, or even wants to, use the product so it is totally unreasonable for me to buy a second license. In a previous thread Scott said Adobe would be willing to be flexible in circumstances like mine if users called tech support. This is a positive example of Adobe taking a very reasonable attitude and listening to its customers

Regards,
Ken
TI
Thomas_Ireland
Aug 7, 2004
I agree with Daryl when he says "In my opinion, this is not a "next release" issue but rather something that should be fixed now, via an update patch."

Because Adobe picked a flaky re-activation process, I should have to purchase the next version of the program to get it fixed? That smacks of a very unfair way to force people to upgrade. It also mirrors another post that mentioned perhaps Adobe would refuse to support activation for CS when the next version hit the market and require upgrading.

People should upgrade to the next version because it offers something new, something innovative, something more than what’s in the current version. Not because they need to get out from under the problems of the current version!

Tom Ireland
Aug 9, 2004
I am installing Photoshop CS in Win XP on my personal desktop and laptop computers, thus using my two alloted installations. What happens if the hard drive containing the hidden activation code suddenly crashes physically and becomes unusable permanently (before I have the opportunity to do an uninstall)? Can I install Photoshop a third time, on the replacemen hard drive? If not, how do I protect my "investment" in the program? Any suggestions?
DM
dave_milbut
Aug 9, 2004
ed, you simply call adobe and explain what happened. and remember the activation is based on some sort of rotating timing thingy, so after x period of time, you’re back up to 2 activations.
DP
Daryl_Pritchard
Aug 9, 2004
Ed,

Yes, you can install Photoshop a 3rd time on the new drive. In fact, when you do, just as you’d also be installing your O/S other software (unless rebuilding from an image of your old drive), your PS CS installation will appear to have been the first. The result is that you’ll be back to having a 30 day grace period for activation. When the time comes that you do activate, you may find activation denied, but I’m not certain of that. Technically, the activation process should permit changing out a piece of hardware (inclusive of system drive) without any activation/reactivation problems, but the process implemented by Adobe doesn’t seem very robust or forgiving for that matter. In the event that activation is denied, then you’ll need to get direct assistance from Adobe tech support and explain you’ve changed hard drives. The tech support person should readily be able to reset your activation records on their side so that you can activate once again without any licensing problems.

Regards,

Daryl
CC
Chris_Cox
Aug 10, 2004
If just the hard drive fails, then the reactivation will still be automatic. You only run into problems when you change several bits of hardware all at the same time.
DP
Daryl_Pritchard
Aug 10, 2004
Not to be argumentative Chris, but that’s not always true as I think should be obvious from the various folks that have reported activation/reactivation problems even when no hardware change occurred. I know what you say is ideally the desired goal though.
DM
dave_milbut
Aug 10, 2004
mostly (but not always) during system restores. i had to do one after an xp restore, no hardware changes.
CC
Chris_Cox
Aug 10, 2004
Daryl – some change always occured, and yes, it will need to reactivate – but it won’t count as a new system, just a reactivation of the same system.
DP
Daryl_Pritchard
Aug 10, 2004
Chris, I definitely agree with "some change always occurred", but that change can be on the software side whereas I thought your earlier comment seemed to imply only hardware changes. I wish it were only hardware changes of some significant extent (3 of 5 specific hardware items for example), which is what I feel should be the case. I do realize that this would only be a reactivation in any case though.

Thanks,

Daryl
DM
dave_milbut
Aug 10, 2004
I completely agree. The whole time based sync check every time it’s run is what’s screwing it up. It should be checking ONLY hardware. It shouldn’t matter when the thing was last run or installed or backed up or restored or what ever. It should be, "Is it the same machine (within the defined paramaters) or not?". Anything more simply abuses the honest user.
TI
Thomas_Ireland
Aug 10, 2004
Right on, Daryl and Dave!

Each of the three or four times I’ve restored my system (copied from a stand-alone drive) I’ve had to reactivate. Thus far, it’s simply been a net connection and it went well. Come to think of it, I’m not so sure it’s not an Activation, rather than a Re-activation. I’m thinking it says that it needs to "Activate", and that it doesn’t say "Re-activate"

At any rate the process should be tied to hardware (several key parts), and not time.

Tom Ireland
P
PeterK.
Aug 10, 2004
ah, but if activation didn’t use some kind of time-based sync check, how else would adobe be able to test the viability of subscription-ware? It’s only a hop-skip and jump from activating once within 30 days of installing to resubscribing every 30 days with a mouse click… but now I’m just opening up a whole other can of worms!
DP
Daryl_Pritchard
Aug 10, 2004
<clamp>
can of worms
</clamp>
Maybe they’ll stay put now. 🙂
JH
John_Hollenberg
Aug 14, 2004
OK, here is my real life scenario. Had CS on my desktop, cruising along. Win 2K got screwed up. Fortunately, I had a backup. But, since I was thinking of getting a new computer anyway, decided to go that route instead. Installed and activated on the new desktop. Tonite I got the old system going again with the backup. My intention was to UNACTIVATE (deactivate?), so I could quit using CS on the old system and have an activation available for the laptop I will probably purchase in the next month or two. Then, I find out I can’t unactivate. I have CS on the old computer, probably can reactivate it, but this is of no use to me–I already have it running on a desktop. What I would like to do is deactivate so that my other activation is waiting for me, like a savings account. When I get the laptop, I would be ready to go.

What do I need to do in this scenario? Wait and hope enough time has passed on the activations when I purchase the laptop? Call Adobe and beg for another activation? Again, I love Photoshop and don’t mind activation–as long as it allows me my two installs and I can move them around to a different computer as the need arises.

–John
Y
YrbkMgr
Aug 14, 2004
Then, I find out I can’t unactivate.

I suggested this feature when PSCS was released, and Scott said it would be a good idea.

What I would like to do is deactivate so that my other activation is waiting for me, like a savings account.

At least today, what you have to do is just wait until you want to activate it on your laptop – then you’ll have to call Adobe Tech Support/Activation Issues Hotline.

Call Adobe and beg for another activation?

Yep. Unless enough time has passed, then, as I’ve read in this forum, it may be a "non-event".

No worries though, you aren’t alone, and I’ve never read about Adobe NOT granting a legit activation.

Peace,
Tony
JH
John_Hollenberg
Aug 14, 2004
No worries though, you aren’t alone, and I’ve never read about Adobe >NOT granting a legit activation.

This is the part that bothers me, though. How do they determine what is legit? I know that I am abiding by the license restrictions. If this disk were to die right away and I didn’t have a backup, or if I stick too many new cards in the PCI slots or pull too many out, I will have to come hat to them hat in hand a 4th, 5th or 6th time. This is the rub for the paying customer. I certainly plan to install PS7 on this machine as some kind of (poor) insurance.

–John
Y
YrbkMgr
Aug 14, 2004
John,

In theory you’re right. I’m against activation as it sits today because it translates into a "machine license" not a user license. That’s another discussion though. Based on my experience with corporations hiring customer/tech support reps and the turnover in those departments considered "necessary evils", I wouldn’t want to place confidence in them either.

In practice, I can tell you that we haven’t heard any users b*tching and screaming that they were denied their rightful installation. Adobe’s posture all along has been, basically, "If activation is broken, we’ll work to fix it, but it’s here to stay." Everything I’ve seen, (but who the hell am I, right?) indicates that their "exceptions" process is pretty forgiving. In fact, once they give me a DEactivation mechanism, I’m probably going to make the move to CS.

I would keep version 7 on as long as humanly possible – I wouldn’t want any snafu to prevent me from getting the work done when I needed to.

In summary, right as you may be, theoretically, in practice, I’d bet you don’t run into a real problem.

Peace,
Tony
L
LenHewitt
Aug 14, 2004
John,

or if I stick too many new cards in the PCI slots or pull too many out, I
will have to come hat to them hat in hand a 4th, 5th or 6th time. <<

No, that would be a re-activation that doesn’t count against your number of ‘original’ activations.
JH
John_Hollenberg
Aug 14, 2004
I never thought I would say this, but I would actually prefer to have a hardware dongle (two of them) rather than having to "count" the activations. Had to reinstall Imageprint, move it to another computer, etc. and it was a breeze. Same for Gretagmacbeth Profilemaker. When I purchased an upgrade, they just sent me a new code which worked with the dongle to "activate" my upgraded copy of Profilemaker.

–John
B
BobLevine
Aug 14, 2004
How long ago was the previous activation done? There a built in timer (for lack of a better word) that resets the two activation limit to allow you to buy a new computer.

Nobody’s saying how long the period of time is but I’m guessing that if you did the original installation more than 6 months ago, you won’t need to call Adobe to do a third activation.

Bob
DM
dave_milbut
Aug 14, 2004
No, that would be a re-activation that doesn’t count against your number of ‘original’ activations.

I’m not sure about that. Enough hardware change to trigger an activation event might be considered a new machine (and a full activation).

As far as we’ve heard here (afaicr) we’ve ONLY heard about reactivations. And dodgy ones at that were nothing major has changed, mosly due to restores. I don’t recall anyone ever coming in here saying that they changed so much hardware that they were prompted to reactivate.
KL
Katherine_Lawson
Aug 15, 2004
Tony is right, Adobe does seem to bend over backward to make activation problems right, so you probably won’t have any problems there.

However, I would definitely keep a copy of PS7 on your machine in case the activation code suffers a stroke when you are either away from a phone or internet connection, or the activation thing goes haywire when it isn’t regular business hours so you aren’t stuck with no Photoshop until you can get it working again. (There are times when people have to phone Adobe rather than using the online activation thing).

That kind of sux when your disc space is at a premium, but so far there doesn’t seem to be any other alternative.

I agree about the dongle. Even that seems better than the activation system Adobe has chosen. I’ve only had to activate Windoze XP a few times since I installed it, and I bought it when it first came out. (I’ve changed practically the whole computer since then without having to reactivate Windoze except when reformatting. I’ve swapped cards and drives and all sorts of things with no problems. The only times I reactivate are when I reformat).

The Macrovision one that Adobe and some other companies use is awful. If Microsoft can get it right, Adobe should certainly be able to get it right too. Having to reactivate after something as simple as a system restore is definitely not good.
TI
Thomas_Ireland
Aug 15, 2004
Activation, activation, activation…

Copied hard drives very late last night. Installed the new one as the boot drive very early this morning. Of course, had to re-activate CS again.

For the record, the initial activation and three subsequent re-activations went as smooth as silk. But this morning the cable ISP was having a county-wide outage. I called Adobe and tried the telephone thing. I entered the serial number as requested, and then entered the activation number listed on the screen. The automated system told me twice that I didn’t enter enough digits for the activation number and that I needed to speak to a technical representative. Yea, right.

After waiting nearly an hour, I explained the problem to the person on the other end of the phone and she asked what it said on the screen for the type of activation. I told her it said "Repair". She informed me that the automated system does not work properly if the reason for needing a re-activation is "Repair".

In short order she politely supplied a new activation number for the slot in the screen and I was back in business. However, I explained that backing up a system or swapping out hard drives is VERY common, and that it shouldn’t require re-activation. I mentioned my fear of this flaky activation system, and she said Adobe is glad to hear the public’s opinion and wants to know of any problems we have with it.

This bothered me a bit and I explained to her that if Adobe really was concerned about how it was working and what their customers thought of it, they’d have fixed it by now. She agreed, but said all I could do was to e-mail a special form regarding activation to Adobe from their web site. Did that quite a while ago.

Again for the record, the activation went smoothly. There was no problem having CS re-activated. Once I waited the 48 minutes for a real person to answer the phone, it took only 2 or 3 minutes to acquire the re-activation numbers, and another 2 to voice my opinion to an Adobe employee.

Having to wait at all is not acceptable. The program can’t handle certain re-activation as it should, and Adobe is not correcting it. Nor are they refunding money for time spent waiting for technical assistance to get this expensive program to work properly.

Tom Ireland
Y
YrbkMgr
Aug 15, 2004
Interesting note Tom.

Personally, I don’t think dongle is the answer either.

There are activation mechanisms that work well. This Macrovision one doesn’t appear to be one of them.

I think it went like this: Activation is a must. Let’s find a mechanism. Research, input, feedback from vendors. Ah, here’s one that will work. Implement it. Release it to the field. Hmm… not quite up to Adobe standards. We have to work on this. More research, more input, more feedback from vendors. Next version/update/patch we should have this licked.

That’s just my supposition…

Peace,
Tony
RH
r_harvey
Aug 15, 2004
When you register, they should issue you a personalized key that would work forever, no matter what you did to your computer(s). It would also have searchable parts in the code, so that they could Google for it. If Adobe found it on any site, anywhere, they would sue you, not the people they found distributing your key–use pirates and file sharers as profit centers.

Hardware dongles are crackable; software dongles are crackable. Neither one stops piracy, but it does have the potential of affecting the reliability and performance of the customer’s computer… which is something you wouldn’t expect from what’s supposed to be just an image editor.
Y
YrbkMgr
Aug 15, 2004
they should issue you a personalized key that would work forever, no matter what you did to your computer(s).

Ah, but that would be akin to a user license system, not a machine license system which is what it amounts to now.

Doh! I’ll stop.
DM
dave_milbut
Aug 15, 2004
but it does have the potential of affecting the reliability and performance of the customer’s computer…

which is exactly why copy protetion "went away" in the 80s.
RH
r_harvey
Aug 15, 2004
which is exactly why copy protetion "went away" in the 80s.

I started purchasing and upgrading MS Word as soon as they dropped copy protection (1986); I stopped upgrading and recommending MS Word when they put it back in (2000).
DP
Daryl_Pritchard
Aug 15, 2004
Tony,

That’s a pretty good way of summing things up. But, the problems with activation/reactivation are not a "next version" issue. Not to say you’re saying they are, but if that happens to be Adobe’s stance, then they’ve slipped a few rungs on the quality ladder. Such an approach would either require the customer to upgrade to the next version, which is in essence creating a subscription sort of product license, or else they’d have to provide some patch for PS CS that disables activation so that it is never an issue again. I think the latter is more along the lines of what they intend. Unfortunately, it still fails to address the presently random problems with reactivation that Adobe is seemingly ignoring.

Daryl
Y
YrbkMgr
Aug 15, 2004
Admittedly, such a patch could very well wind up in the pirated software lists

Which is a better, more controllable event than the complete activation hacks that are present now – remember what happened with the 7.01 update?

To elaborate on my "next version" issue Daryl, I think they will consider a migration for existing users to a better activation scheme when they solve and incorporate it into another version/patch.

In other words, I think they know that Macrovision isn’t panning out like they would like, but it’s not the end of the world, like Intuit’s first implementation was. Rather, it’s workable today, gripes here and there, but workable. In order to implement a mechanism that is up to their standards, two things have to happen, really: the user base has to be acclimated to the idea, and they have to head off issues before they become issues.

They’ve successfully accomplished the first, and did the best they could with the second (unlike Intuit’s first pass at it).

I think we can agree that all companies are struggling with activation and the perfect balance between security and affecting users. It’s an evolutionary process that doesn’t evolve until it’s released into the mainstream.

I think they tried Macrovision, and if Adobe can’t get manufacturer support on solving their specific user base issues, they’ll change. But the first thing to do, would be to work with the existing vendor and see if there isn’t a solution that can be implemented without "re-tooling" the whole thing.

Then they figure out a release mechanism – that is to say, how they will release it and what they do with the existing affected base.

Frankly, it’s a bit academic for me. What I see is Adobe is not being a jerk about the whole thing – they’re seriously concerned; that’s about as much as one can ask for. But until there’s a real, fair and equitable activation / copy protection scheme, I’m not interested in the product.

Peace,
Tony
DP
Daryl_Pritchard
Aug 15, 2004
Tony,

I agree with what you say, and I’d like to believe Adobe is working on the issues with activation but I feel this is a problem that warrants their keeping the users informed on when a fix can be expected. I’ve not seen that. I’m not affected personally, use PS only as a hobby, and I’ve got a solution if problems do arise, but as often as I see how Photoshop is a "professional application", I think Adobe owes a prompt solution to those who depend upon PS in their job performance, else they suffer lost productivity, particularly if working in a remote location with no phone or internet access readily available. For now, the only alternative is to keep an older PS version on one’s system for a backup; fortunately hard drive space is typically plentiful on current PCs such that having two PS installations isn’t too much an issue.

Oh well, apart from this, I’ve been reading the knowledgebase page about troubleshooting activation problems and see that the process is more flawed than I realized: One MAY be prompted to reactivate if

"– You installed Photoshop on a dual-boot computer. (You can activate Photoshop on only one of the installed operating systems.)"

"– You installed Photoshop on a RAID array"

Fortunately, at least in my opinion, WinXP eliminates much of the need for running a dual-boot system (if the other O/S is a Windows variant), but this sounds bad to me that a dual-boot system would possibly cause a problem. I suspect it boils down again to the "time synch" issue of activation hashes and that perhaps a separate hash is not written to the boot sector for each O/S. Use of a 3rd-party boot manager such as BootMagic might be an answer to that, but I’m not sure.

"Photoshop activation requires a level of data integrity that the RAID software or configuration may not deliver," which really sounds bad to me given that cheap hard drives make RAID increasingly common these days. The solution offered it to install both PS and Windows on a single drive apart from drive array. I assume most folks running RAID haven’t seen this problem, or at least I hope not. My own plans for my next PC were to have a RAID drive configuration for the boot drive, and now this makes me wonder whether I should really do that. Although I know RAID arrays are often used for data storage only, I’m sure there’s a number of people who also use them for their system drives so as to eke out the fastest performance possible. So, moving Windows to a single drive is not a good answer.

Presumably, the problems addressed by the troubleshooting page are among those which Adobe will try and resolve with a better activation/reactivation process in the future. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what happens.

Regards,

Daryl
Y
YrbkMgr
Aug 15, 2004
Daryl,

but I feel this is a problem that warrants their keeping the users informed on when a fix can be expected

Ain’t gonna happen. The worst thing they could do is announce their plan and then have it change for one reason or another. Standard corporate communications dicate "Sell what you have".

I think Adobe owes a prompt solution to those who depend upon PS in their job performance

Without trying to be argumentative, I think that’s what’s happening. The term in question is "prompt". Using the "sell what you have" mentality, until there IS a solution, it doesn’t seem to me to make sense to go off half cocked.

I can’t imagine a solution, taking into consideration all of the variables (or most of them) is an easy task. I would expect that Adobe find a solution, implement it, and make all of this go away.

You installed Photoshop on a dual-boot computer. (You can activate Photoshop on only one of the installed operating systems.)"

Ha! So it’s not a machine license, it’s an OS License! Sorry, couldn’t help it.

The solution offered it to install both PS and Windows on a single drive apart from drive array.

Which somewhat obviates the value of RAID, I would think.

I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what happens

In essence, that’s pretty much my point. The upside is, UNLIKE Quark, Adobe seem committed to maintaining professionalism and concern for their installed base. This is a HUGE plus and shouldn’t be brushed over lightly, IMO.

Peace,
Tony
DP
Daryl_Pritchard
Aug 15, 2004
Tony, I guess my whole take on keeping the users apprised of when a fix will be available is that it doesn’t need to be set in concrete. Early on, Adobe reps here definitely contributed some valuable info regarding activation/reactivation and comments which indeed suggesting the problems were being investigated. But, here we are now some 10 months or so since the release of PS CS, and we’ve seen no patches of any sort to address the solution. Again, my personal opinion is that is simply long overdue. But, maybe the problem does rest with Macrovision and getting the support needed there before Adobe can do anything further. As others have said, it’s too bad Adobe didn’t follow Microsoft’s example with activation. Live and learn.

Cheers,

Daryl
Y
YrbkMgr
Aug 16, 2004
As others have said, it’s too bad Adobe didn’t follow Microsoft’s example with activation.

Yeah, but I’m sure they looked at it, and for a litany of reasons chose Macrovision instead.

As far as Adobe coming out and saying "Look folks, activation works, there are some kinks, but rest assured we will resolve them in due time", they’ve essentially done that. If they said "A complete fix will be available in two months", they’d get their head handed to them if they missed it by one day.

<shrug> I dunno, maybe their view is "look, the number of users remains constant, so we haven’t lost business – any business we have lost is made up for by new business. Let’s not drop any more money into this." I kind of doubt that’d be the case, but it’s a possibility.

That said, I agree with you, in principle. It’s just that I’ve worked in Corporate America too long to think that a solution is easy or near, for that matter.
DP
Daryl_Pritchard
Aug 16, 2004
I don’t know that it’s a solution to all the reactivation problems, but another idea did come do mind…time for a new topic, since I’m not sure if any Adobe folk are monitoring this thread…
RH
r_harvey
Aug 16, 2004
time for a new topic, since I’m not sure if any Adobe folk are monitoring this thread…

Shortly thereafter, time for Robert Levine to combine them back together again.
B
BobLevine
Aug 16, 2004
Please do not start another thread. This one is quite enough. And if everyone else can see it, so can the folks from Adobe.

Bob
DP
Daryl_Pritchard
Aug 16, 2004
Bob,

You’ll see that I’ve already started the thread I was referring to, titled "PS CS Activation State Recovery Tool". Perhaps I’m wrong, but I felt the nature of the post was such that it is better served on its own, even if you should decide it is better moved to the Features Request area. If so, that’s fine, but I thought the idea has merit enough not to bury it in a thread where it bears little relationship to the OP.

Thanks,

Daryl
B
BobLevine
Aug 16, 2004
It’s fine Daryl. My only concern is that it will turn into another rants thread. Perhaps just moving the rants posts back here will keep your thread alive with more on the technical end.

Bob

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