The failure of Adobe

[calypso]

Now before we get into the whole *why don't you use gimp and not waste your money discussion* I needed Adobe CS4 for a class I'm taking. While I considered simply obtaining the product through....less than legitimate means, I felt guilty about constantly trying to get these products for free. So I decided I'd turn a new leaf and start purchasing software legit. As I was a student I got a nice discount on the Adobe product of choice, Design Premium and went ahead and purchased a license. Upon recieving activation code I eagerly installed the software on the computer and when prompted, entered the data into the field. Then I fired up photoshop feeling the need to edit some photo's. Then I get the nice little message stating, this is only a trial version of Adobe products, please enter your activation code or continue the trial. Strange I thought, maybe it's a glitch. So I enter the key again and it appears to take it. I play with photoshop some and realize I want to use Illustrator, so I fire that up and I get the same message. This time I'm a bit worried but I enter the key code again. This time it doesn't take. I try it on all the other adobe programs and it refuses to authenticate. On top of that photoshop isn't authenticated either. So I try to contact customer service, they give me the run around for over a week before telling me I have to call. SO I try calling. Two hours on the phone later and I'm still listening to the same musac. To me this is unacceptable, I don't care if I didn't spend the 1700 dollars for a retail version and I only spent 399 for the educational version. This is not the way to run a business. I'm writing this as a warning to others, adobe CS4 may be great software, if you can actually get it authenticated.

Some other interesting notes:
Discovered that CS4 uses an swtag file which is actually an XML file. This links to an XSD file which parses the data. The problem is the address in the xml file is wrong for the XSD file.

I tried a keygen code and it works but I have to get rid of it as I"m 'trying to go legit' oh irony of irony.

[streaker69]

Re: The failure of Adobe

I called Adobe support a couple months ago to reactivate a key that had been apparently activated too many times due to re-installations. I got through in less than 3 minutes and only spent about 5 minutes on the phone with them getting the problem resolved.

It does sound like there's a registration glitch in their authorization bit. Did you have a trial version or previous version of the software installed before you got this new version? Adobe has a nasty tendency to not check for previous version, or if it does, doesn't let you know there's previous versions there. I've already run into machines with 4 different versions of Acrobat reader and 2 versions of Acrobat Pro.

If you have previous versions installed, remove them, delete their remaining directory structure if it remains after uninstallation, and verify it pulled all the registry keys out. Then try re-installing the product again.

[calypso]

Re: The failure of Adobe

Thanks Streaker. This was a fresh install (snow leopard didn't like PGP apparently) so there shouldn;t have been any record of the installation. I will however check the installation and directory tree. I might have missed something. I still think this may be a glitch in it's software activation as the key doesn't show as being valid when entered. It doesn't give a checkmark and then say invalid key, it simply says the key is invalid.

[renderman]

Re: The failure of Adobe

I tried a keygen code and it works but I have to get rid of it as I"m 'trying to go legit' oh irony of irony.

In the grand scheme of things, you have the code, you have the paperwork proving you bought a license, the number entered in the software is inconsequential.

More than once I've found myself having to go through just that situation. Telling the client 'look over there, something shiny!' while I rip out an activation routine or swap executables just to make the damn thing work because 'of course' they need to use it right now.

[calypso]

Re: The failure of Adobe

Render: I totally agree with you. If push comes to shove I'm going to do that. As of right now I still have about 14 days left before my trial is up. I've informed my teacher of this and I'm waiting back for his response. In the mean time I'm going to give adobe one more chance to redeem themselves, after that....who knows.

[barry99705]

Re: The failure of Adobe

Yea, the Adobe licensing thing can be fun sometimes. You didn't happen to copy over your old home directory, or have time machine restore anything did you? I've seen that happen. My companies site license is for International English, not just English. We have folks install the trial while the authorization for the new key is being pushed through the red tape. It's fun trying to remove all the crap that gets installed when they realize they forgot to use Int English instead of just English.

[xor]

Re: The failure of Adobe

CS4 errr *****acquired***** copies come with a well known rootkit, these include the Mac OSX ones. So if one was previously installed on a hypothetical system, the rootkit could still be present, even though the OS has been re-installed.

Just something to think about if you care about that sort of stuff.

xor

Ps Adobe though cool, is much too expensive for casual use. However, I'm sure it's worth the investment in a production environment.

[sintax_error]

Re: The failure of Adobe

Ps Adobe though cool, is much too expensive for casual use. However, I'm sure it's worth the investment in a production environment.

I see a production/edu environment as the only real viable reason for using PS. In all honesty, unless you're making a profit from it's use, or learning to make a profit from it's use, it's just not worth the investment. I think that is the reason for the price tag, and the core target of Adobe. That being said, that's all the more reason for their customer service to be more an example of streaker's account as opposed to calypso's. Now granted calypso's experience may very well be the exception rather than the rule, I've never had to deal with Adobe's customer service, so I can't speak to that. But none the less, weather you're paying $1700 for the license, or $399, that's still a sizable chunk of change, and for that, problems ought to be resolved quickly.

Only thing I could suggest other than what's already been said is to "test" the key in a Virtual Box/VM or the such with a totally clean OS install and see if it works there. If it does, starting on a clean slate might be quicker than going back and forth with Adobe support.

[calypso]

Re: The failure of Adobe

Update: I was able to get it working only after appealing to the activation people at adobe that no I wasn't going to reinstall my OS and that I was going to do a charge back on my card if they didn't fix the problem. In the end I appealed to their wallet and they gave me a new (working key code). So technically I now have two codes for the price of one, however only one works lol.

[velderia]

Re: The failure of Adobe

Ps Adobe though cool, is much too expensive for casual use. However, I'm sure it's worth the investment in a production environment.

It's worth the investment but even for a production environment it's insanely expensive. Not only do you have to pay 1000 dollars just for that version, but if you have an extremely outdated version and you need to upgrade, you have to pay that 500 bucks. (And I'm sure that will increase in the future, as long as the price keeps hiking up.)

At that point, is it truly a product, or a renting program? I don't see why Adobe has to charge a thousand dollars for something that probably doesn't take that so much of a budget to make. I need it because no other program really supports CMYK, at least not very well. The gimp is meaningless to me. Nearly all independent comic companies I can think of only accept CMYK, and I think the mainstream ones do too. So this is pretty painful for me and of course, a lot of people have to suffer.



I hope your problem with activating it gets solved.

If it doesn't, I don't see why people have to be guilty when they download it illegally: http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/invr...05Earnings.pdf

There's also another thing that bugs me. Why can't Photoshop Elements support CMYK? Last time I checked, it didn't.

[AgentDarkApple]

Re: The failure of Adobe

I think the newer Adobe stuff is just wonky. I used the trial of Photoshop Elements (because I tried Gimp and didn't like it). Once my trial was over, I clicked the little popup's link to buy the license key. I got the license key and proceeded to enter it into the popup on the trial version, as the popup itself said to do so. Nada. I had to uninstall it then download it from the Adobe site (don't get me started on their "download manager"...ughhh! ) Then it finally worked.

[calypso]

Re: The failure of Adobe

Yes I was able to get it working thank god.

[Rewt Daemon]

Re: The failure of Adobe

I don't see why Adobe has to charge a thousand dollars for something that probably doesn't take that so much of a budget to make. I need it because no other program really supports CMYK, at least not very well.

Asked and answered. They don't have to charge $1000 a copy and the price tag has very little to do with the cost of production. This is an example of the basic market principal of supply and demand in action. They have a product that best suits a market (for some the only worthwhile product) and that market is willing to pay for it.

Personally I can get by with the GIMP but I am certainly not the market Adobe is producing for... the only good news is that generally if you need an Adobe product you are probably earning money from the work you do with it yourself... helps to balance that $1000 price tag, no?

[charliex]

Re: The failure of Adobe

I used to work at Xerox we had some deal with Adobe and the source code for some of their stuff, having dealt with it a fair bit and the very high end printing market, I can assure anyone that "probably doesn't take that so much of a budget to make..." couldn't be further from the truth. It's a lot of work by a lot of people... I know I spent many a late nite working on colour quantisation algorithms and various other optimisation things which were just one tiny bit of the overall project.

Photoshop is in use by so many people because it does so a lot of things that other projects do not do as well, and it goes well beyond just what the code does, the problems it and Adobe suffers, are common to everyone else too. It certainly sucks a lot when you're the individual getting the run around though, but in a way you're seeing one of the reasons as to why I think that is happening, devaluation of just how much work it is and ultimately what that's worth..

[streaker69]

Re: The failure of Adobe

I think that Adobe recognized that not everyone could or need to spend $1000 for the professional version, that's why they came out with the Elements line. Which is perfect for most people that want to do more advanced editing than other packages, but isn't out of the price range of a small business.

I've been using various versions of Elements for the past 5 years and it does everything that I could ever need it to do, plus probably a whole lot more. I did try out Gimp as well, but found it to be difficult to work with after having been used to Adobe for so many years.