Activating CS3 with both Vista and XP Pro on same system

M
Posted By
Mogur203
May 21, 2007
Views
580
Replies
7
Status
Closed
If I install and activate CS3 on one system with both Vista and XP PRO, will this count as the two permitted activations?

Thanks,

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DM
dave_milbut
May 21, 2007
I hazard a guess at "yes".
C
chrisjbirchall
May 21, 2007
….although not if you De-activate one first. Activate/deactivate is very quick and easy.
DP
Daryl_Pritchard
May 21, 2007
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
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nrmsmith
May 24, 2007
Are you allowed two concurrent activations with CS3 then?

I thought you were only allowed one, and had to transfer this between installations, if, for example, you had it on both a desktop and a notebook.

NigelS
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Bob Levine
May 24, 2007
Two activations but only one is permitted to be used at a time. That’s handled through the honor system.

Bob
AV
annick_vanderschelden
May 25, 2007
What do you mean by ‘system’: one computer or a network? If you have one computer with two different operating systems (Vista and XP)and you have CS3 installed and activated on both, I don’t know
if this count for two permitted activations. I suppose so though…
DP
Daryl_Pritchard
May 25, 2007
Annick,

With a typical retail license of Photoshop, installation and activation on two computers is permitted, with the caveat that they are not used concurrently for working in Photoshop. As Bob said, whether or not you run PS concurrently on two computers is not really enforced in any way, but rather the "honor system" or the user’s integrity to abide by the license agreement is relied upon here. I have read some postings over the years where folks mentioned that if you launched PS on a computer network where a user on another networked PC was also using PS, then that was not allowed. Of course, that would be silly, because both PCs may very well be running their own individual licenses of PS.

But, more to your question, there is no reason whatsoever that Adobe should consider the installation of PS on one computer, but to each of two operating systems, as requiring both of the permitted activations. However, the design of the license manager may not support it, depending how you configure the dual-boot system and how you install PS CS3. I suspect that unless you duplicate the license data from one O/S into the corresponding location of the other O/S before performing a 2nd PS CS3 installation, you may be at risk of being prompted to activate again, thus using up your 2nd activation. One way to avoid this, is to first deactivate PS for the O/S where PS is not being used, then reboot to the desired O/S and reactivate PS. As I said earlier, I’m not sure how reliable that process would be if repeated time after time, but it is one answer.

I’ll refer you back to my earlier, longer posting for how I set up a dual-boot PC configuration for using PS CS3 in a way that is transparent to the license manager such that only a single activation is used. There may be a better approach, and if they’ve not done it already, I think Adobe should provide guidance on their website on how to install Photoshop on a multi-boot computer without requiring more than a single activation and without requiring any sort of activation transfer or deactivation.

Regards,

Daryl

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