Big Business...sorry I fed them.

[Peter Ward]

I decided to get a genuine upgrade from Adobe PS2 to PS4 recently, and after shelling out a few hundred $$, my DVD via Fedex arrived in short order.

The supplied serial number (activation) didn't work, the old number didn't work, and so far I've been waiting on the Adobe customer service phone line for 40 minutes....and counting

Yes...it's great to see how they support "genuine" software!!

and software companies wonder why people use pirated copies....Cheesh.

[sheeny (Al)]

Did you deactivate and uninstall CS2 first, Peter? I had hells own trouble with CS3 a while ago and had to download CS3Cleaner to remove all the little bits and fragments of it before I could reinstall it...

Al.

[scarper (Mart)]

Activation is a consequence of piracy..not the other way round.

Try removing the old version first. There may also be some reg keys you need to remove for it to work.

[WarpSpider74 (Derek)]

Originally Posted by scarper

Activation is a consequence of piracy..not the other way round.

This is true... however it also leads to a vicious cycle of ever more elaborate (and inconvenient!!) activation schemes.

Developer releases Product. A few people pirate it. Developer releases next version with Copy Protection "A". People whinge about "A" impinging on their rights to backup said product. More people pirate cracked product. Developer releases next version with Copy Protection "B" which places further restrictions on the end user. Lots of people whinge about "B" and "A" and how they make backup impossible and product activation difficult. Lots of people pirate cracked product. Developer, claiming piracy is ruining their profit line implements draconian Copy Protection "C", requiring permanent internet connection for verification of activation key everytime the product is run. Much wailing and gnashing of teeth from people who can no longer run product because they don't have a permanent connection. Some people abandon product for free alternatives, many others just download the easier to use pirated cracked version. Etc.

The debate is raging strong in the computer game market at the moment. I am, by the way, all for businesses protecting their intellectual property, as long as they don't make the end user jump through hoops to use their product. No, I do not use pirated versions of software myself... there is little point when there are equally good free alternatives out there. GIMP, Inkscape and paint.net satisfy my needs for image manipulation, OpenOffice.org and Google Documents fill in the office application hole. And so on and so forth. </rant>

[Peter Ward]

Well actually yes, I did de-activate my old copy of CS2 (I started with computers by programming an IBM 1130 in Fortan in 1970...hence don't think I'm a novice )

It actually took nearly *two* hours on the phone (several people in India) and still the issue was not solved.

I eventually solved it by un-installing then, re-installing CS2, then installing CS4.....

If you bought a car that took this much trouble to get started, you'd take it back.

[supernova1965 (Warren)]

Originally Posted by WarpSpider74

This is true... however it also leads to a vicious cycle of ever more elaborate (and inconvenient!!) activation schemes.



The debate is raging strong in the computer game market at the moment. I am, by the way, all for businesses protecting their intellectual property, as long as they don't make the end user jump through hoops to use their product. No, I do not use pirated versions of software myself... there is little point when there are equally good free alternatives out there. GIMP, Inkscape and paint.net satisfy my needs for image manipulation, OpenOffice.org and Google Documents fill in the office application hole. And so on and so forth. </rant>

I have purchased Virtual Skipper 4 and it is now useless to me because their disc protection system refused to work on vista. And refuses to work on Windows 7 the disc protection Starforce just does not work with anything windows after XP so I have a legal right to use the software but can't that sucks

[multiweb (Marc)]

Weird. I've had CS2/3 even CS4 running concurrently on the same machine. Some mishap must have happen in one of the rego files. Phone support is pretty hopeless yeah. Why did you order a DVD? It's easier to download from the online shop.

[Roobi]

This is happening witha bunch of games also as warpspider said. I have the sims 2 and absolutely cannot play it anymore as they have put this disk protection on it. everytime i put the disk in, it keeps saying that its the wrong disk.. the only way around it is to get a no cd key which then disables some features. After speaking to ea support they say its got to do with vista not recognising the disk copy protection so theres nothing that can be done. What a big pile of #$@* This has also happened with several other games i own now that i have my vista laptop..... btw I HATE vista. Microsoft should give us vista uses either free upgrades.

[Peter Ward]

Originally Posted by multiweb

..... Phone support is pretty hopeless yeah. Why did you order a DVD? It's easier to download from the online shop.

I simply wanted a "hard asset" that was not affected by my unreliable Telstra ISP.

BTW I run XP64...and suspect that was a contributing factor...

[multiweb (Marc)]

Originally Posted by Peter Ward

I simply wanted a "hard asset" that was not affected by my unreliable Telstra ISP.

BTW I run XP64...and suspect that was a contributing factor...

Ha... got you. Yeah the win64 version might work slightly different.