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.