*Grumble* Adobe support re: Photoshop activation

[elvirav]

This is mostly a gripe, with a little bit of a question.

Well, it turns out that I've activated my copy of Photoshop CS2 too many times. All of it was legitimate, of course. I have had it on three computers—an old G4 tower, my previous (G4) Mac Mini (sold on eBay, hard drive wiped), and now my current Intel Mac Mini.

I have this habit of reinstalling the OS, as well has having a multitude of partititions (all with their own version of Mac OS—on the G4 Mini, I had a partition for Panther and one for Tiger) and yeah, I installed Photoshop on all of these partitions. It was just me and my one computer, right? So I figured it wasn't wrong to do it.

When I got the "too many activations" message, I called up Adobe Support and explained my situation. I have nothing to hide. I offered to delete the copy of Photoshop off of the old G4 (I installed it when the Mini was in the shop and I was using it as a backup) but that didn't seem to be the main issue with the support person. She kept on talking about Parallels. "When you have Parallels," she said, "You can't have Photoshop on it too." Or she said something like that. I never really heard her entire line of reasoning, because I was too incredulous. I kept on interrupting and saying, "But Parallels is for Windows emulation! I have a Mac version of Photoshop! What does Parallels have to do with anything?" But she kept on going on (and on, and on) about Parallels, as if that were the culprit for my problems. It was very frustrating. I tried not to get angry or be rude with her, though. (I didn't think it would help anything! )

Anyway, she did (eventually) give me an activation number to get Photoshop working again, and told me that in the future I could deactivate my copy of Photoshop so I could move it to a new system. (I intend to buy a new Mac next month.) But my question is, what if something happens and I'm not able to deactivate Photoshop? Or what if (heaven forbid) I forget to deactivate it? I am guessing that after another phone call to Adobe, that they'll have mercy on me and let me activate, but this makes me a little nervous.

 

[LeviG]

how exactly can parallels be an issue for photoshop (for mac), I could understand a windows version. Adobe doesn't have any links to vmware do they

 

[Nall]

I know for some versions of various Adobe/Macromedia products, the Windows and Macintosh versions are both included, but you can only activate one. (EDIT: Even if it's not for that version, it's possible the keys may be the same, and so people are trying it anyway.)

So my guess is, maybe a lot of people were trying to use various Adobe/Macromedia products in Mac OS X and in Bootcamp/Parallels/whatever and were running into activation problems because of it.

In any case, Parallels has been available longer, so maybe a lot more of Adobe's customers are using it over VMWare.

 

[elvirav]

My Photoshop CS2 box says "Macintosh," and I always assumed that there was only the Mac version. I guess you could be right—that the mention of "partitions" triggered her Parallels routine, but it was completely not what I was talking about, and she refused to listen.

I never once talked about Windows, Parallels, Bootcamp—nothing relating to Windows. I talked about Panther and Tiger, yes, but those are not Windows. So why on earth did she keep yammering on about Parallels? I kept on telling her, this was not about Windows, because I had a Mac version and why would I install a Mac version on Windows? It made no sense.

My theory is that she had the most tenuous grasp of Windows/Mac issues, and anything that strayed from her prepared script was confusing to her, and threw her into a continuous loop about Parallels. Or something.

 

[AEP]

just thought i would throw this one in,

maybe the Adobe Support lady wasn't refering to Parallels in the same manner as what we refer to Parallels!

thinking mabe she was refering to multipul installs on different machines/ partititions, as in to many installs being active at the same time and running parallel with each other.

nothing to do windows/OSX parallels. just to many activations running in parallel

that's kind of confusing but i don't mean parallels, i mean in parallel

 

[creator2456]

just thought i would throw this one in,

maybe the Adobe Support lady wasn't refering to Parallels in the same manner as what we refer to Parallels!

thinking mabe she was refering to multipul installs on different machines/ partititions, as in to many installs being active at the same time and running parallel with each other.

nothing to do windows/OSX parallels. just to many activations running in parallel

that's kind of confusing but i don't mean parallels, i mean in parallel

I have a feeling that this is what she was talking about as well.

example
I can install CS3 as much as I want (create parallels) as long as I am the one using the software, but I am limited to just 2 of x# of installs being active.