Well, so i've got photoshop cs (8) and wooh its all good, set the activation thing on installation to remind me later, now its been 30 days and cant start photoshop cuz the serial "expired" and i have to activate, so.. i changed the date in windows, managed to get photoshop open, clicked on the activation thing in the menu.. but nothing happens, LOL so i tried to uninstall completely and reinstall/activate, but no i cant even install now with my serial. thats crap, how am i supposed to activate my serial if i cant even get to the activation process??? :D

That, the slowness, the "secret money-scanning prevention" routine (and principles) is the reason I didn't make the upgrade this time. I hope a lot of other people gave them the "single-digit salute" as well.

unfortunately i didn't give them the one finger salute- in fact, i bought 4 creative suite premiums before i found out: -Photoshop cs is slowww especially if you add filters- takes forever to open, -Indesign3 book function still crashes and doesn't wuite work right -Version cue stores soo much memory it crashes itself -The money thing -No backwards compatability -Forcing graphic grunts like me who work on the brink of bankruptsy to spend $4,000 on a 10 user license for the new open type font standard library (i only need 7 more people to go in with me on this then we all only have to pay $400 each) -customer service was a joke when i was exchanging my mac version for a pc version- the people were nice enough but really really confused- one hand definately did not know what the other hand was doing -paying 8 times for shipping on a product that was adobe's screw up when they repeatedly kept sending me the wrong platform -every time i defrag or optimise my machine, or use ip ghosting, it asks me to re register my copy ( about once a week at least) every time an issue comes up- the first response from adobe is - reformat your machine ( always good- then have to keep reactivating my os when there's nothing wrong with my os performance) -my keyboard is a standard generic split keyboard with no drivers- but my keyboard commands don't work- and the response on the forum boards is- keyboard commands don't work with cracked versions or you need to update your keyboard drivers and my CS is neither cracked ( i spent over $4,000 upgrading all my workstations and my keyboard came with NO drivers so how do i upgrade them??) ...breathe cheryle.. just breathe and put the soap box away.... /rant off sorry- this is a sore subject with me-

Well, it's all the fault of people making illegal copies of software! Oh. And Adobe ofcourse.

Wow, I was thinking the upgrade to be a must, but not so sure when I read this. Maybe I'll just keep my hard earned money and stick with PS6.

Tatchi, there's nothing wrong with 7 if you can still get it. Wow, Cheryl! "Well, it's all the fault of people making illegal copies of software!" I realize you were saying that with a bit of "tongue-and-cheek" but it goes burn my shorthairs a bit. I mean, shoplifters come into the store(s) and steal stuff. The store can't seem to stop it. Solution? Charge the people who buy things MORE to make up for it. Software companys think the same way. Someone stealing your software? Punish the people who purchase it by inflicting upon them a nuisance and assumption of guilt. Meanwhile, before the first copies have been received by the customers who ordered it, hacked copies are there for the taking on the various P2P sites (and so forth). And, of course, the new version seems to have been met with the most negative comments I've ever seen (just take a look a few forums around and see what I mean).

yes but why buy that kinda crap? seriously, way too friggen much money for an upgrade.

You can avoid having to reactivate Windows after a reinstall by copying wpa.dbl from the system32 folder in your main windows folder, and then copying it back after reinstalling. I think this also covers Office and any other MS activated software. NOTE: this doesn't let you use it on another machine, it still checks against your hardware configuration on startup as before. Once activated PS stores part of its key on track zero of your hard drive, the reactivation in this case just puts the other files in place but doesn't use up one of your allowed activations. The lack of backward compatibilty in AI is a result of the new text engine, and was announced before the product shipped - you should still be able to use File>Export to save back to earlier versions. As far as I am aware PSD files (and layered TIFF files) remain backward compatible - make sure you aren't using the new format needed to support larger file sizes, which isn't compatible. InDesign was meant to save back to ID2 but apparently they found it impossible to implement at a sufficiently high standard - this could have been more clearly stated, especially as it is still listed as possible in the printed and online docs (but not the readme).

Because adobe has pulled all remaining inventory on all legacy programs from store shelves and from all the online stores i haunt- i can't buy anything legacy. Because at the Driven by Design conference Adobe basically said "we've drawn a line in the sand- we're not going back so suck it up AUUGGHH there i go again- must stay away from this topic it's toxic

on the adobe forums- there's pages long of the indesign backwards compatabiltuiy issue- goes something like this : Indesign is backwards compatable no it isnt yes it is no it isnt yes it is such and such at adobe said it was no it isn't such and succh at adobe said it wasn't ues it is no it isnt and and and that new text tool in illustrator??. ACK doing type on a path is a nightmare now!! ok ok so i have issues and am having a hard time with the upgrade ...

Because it's what i do for a living- I had to buy 2 more software packages for the two new workstations- all workstations have to be compatable so no matter who is on what machine, all final files are compatable. so if i buy 2 new packages, i have to upgrade the other two machines to match

Attached Link: http://www.adobe.com/events/splash.jsp?eventID=1371

Sandee Cohen put a summary of the ID CS/2 backward compatibility thread(s) up in the Adobe ID Windows forum which conveyed the same "mature and sophisticated" ambience :).

I have been debating whether it was really worth it for me to upgrade my legal copy of PS 7 to the CS. The sparse new features made be believe just buying some new plugins might be a better option than upgrading the whole program. Now reading this thread regarding this "activation" issue has made me decide that I'd rather not be bothered. I was planning on a hardware upgrade for my computer, but it sounds like if I do get CS and then upgrade my PC there'd likely to be problems. I think that software companies must realize that if people are going to pirate their softwares, those making big profits of it are simply going to hack their protection mechanisms. Hastling their paying cutomers with this sort of thing will only make it unlikely that people will buy the next edition. To be honest, I think these upgrades come to frequently, do I really need to learn a new version of a program each year? Why couldn't improvements be sold ala cart via plug-ins instead of making everyone install a new version each year? I am a hobbiest, I don't always need the latest and greatest, so this time I think I'll pass.

I can say that PS:CS tiffs are definately backwards compatable as per my experiments resulting in a tif2pgm converter(see bryce forum for details) which uses 16 bit tiffs generated in PS:CS to create 16 bit height maps for Bryce. other than that I don't know as I don't have PS:CS, but my previous internet searces in this regard seemed to point to an increasingly negative attitude towards their customers and for that matter plugin developers on the part of Adobe. I hope this apparent trend does not continue. I think the customer base of Poser 5 revolted at the thought of activation codes and other such issues - in general they are a bad idea as: "I think without customers we ain't got no wallmart" to quote a commercial for said store. I was gonna try to save up and get cs for it's 16 bit capabilities and LOL so I could use the 16 bit part of my own utility, but perhaps I'll wait a while to get CS - see how it goes. - TJ

There's a new entry in the Adobe PS FAQ. Some PSCS files (PSD) won't open in PS6, due to a bug in PS6: other versions of PS are apparently not affected (which makes it a shame that I upgraded from 6 to CS, though I'm not intending to move back).

Saving grace for you will be layered tiffs. I think it was vers 6 they were introduced. If you're getting layered PS 8 psd's, you can always ask your client or whoever is supplying the file you need to edit to save it as a layered tiff....

Cheryle, That's good to know - I was thinking I'd have to use infranview for layered tiffs or use multible source files for my little project. Thank you for the info, - TJ

I actually have PSCS, but yes layered Tiffs are useful. So far Painter has opened my CS PSDs without complaint, which is the main thing.