Photshop activation pains - Upgrade solution?

agunther

I bought a Quad Core HP machine with 8GB RAM from Fry's yesterday to replace my broken Photosop computer once again. It runs Win7 64bit and cost me a mere $580.
I think its quite a steal. I am very pleased with the performance, running some tests with Lightroom 3 Beta,

Since my old computer's Raid array kept disintegrating, I have had to wipe my harddrive a couple of times until I realized in agony, that each time ate up a Photoshop license (couldn't release the license before the wiping).
So in effect, I have to call Adobe when I install on a new computer. That is not a big deal, except that I cannot sell the software anymore.

I think its a shame to fork out $600 for a software and having to call Adobe for every activation. I asked them to wipe their license server database and let me re-register my two legal installations, but they claim they cannot do this.

I sent an email to support, asking if buying the upgrade to CS4 (I use CS3) would behave the same way, or if it would behave normally again, but I didn't get an answer either.

Do any of you guys have insight into this? I am wondering if I should spring for the CS4 upgrade and potentially have long lived pains after that or if I should get Lightroom and have a cheaper upgrade path from now on. Photoshop has all the editing options I need in CS3, but ACR is getting old in light of new camera releases.

Thoughts?

David_S85

agunther wrote:

I bought a Quad Core HP machine with 8GB RAM from Fry's yesterday to replace my broken Photosop computer once again. It runs Win7 64bit and cost me a mere $580.
I think its quite a steal. I am very pleased with the performance, running some tests with Lightroom 3 Beta,

Since my old computer's Raid array kept disintegrating, I have had to wipe my harddrive a couple of times until I realized in agony, that each time ate up a Photoshop license (couldn't release the license before the wiping).
So in effect, I have to call Adobe when I install on a new computer. That is not a big deal, except that I cannot sell the software anymore.

I think its a shame to fork out $600 for a software and having to call Adobe for every activation. I asked them to wipe their license server database and let me re-register my two legal installations, but they claim they cannot do this.

I sent an email to support, asking if buying the upgrade to CS4 (I use CS3) would behave the same way, or if it would behave normally again, but I didn't get an answer either.

Do any of you guys have insight into this? I am wondering if I should spring for the CS4 upgrade and potentially have long lived pains after that or if I should get Lightroom and have a cheaper upgrade path from now on. Photoshop has all the editing options I need in CS3, but ACR is getting old in light of new camera releases.

Thoughts?

The last time we needed to migrate CS (2 in my case) to yet another computer, Adobe was less worried because it was a version old at the time. I would call the licensing division and explain the situation. If you were on CS4 and needed to re-migrate over and over - that might be more of an issue with them. YMMV.

You mentioned that you can't sell the software anymore. From what I understand, when you agree to the license on setup (and this goes for all commercial software I have ever purchased) you really can't re-sell software you have already purchased, as the license only gives you the right to use it.

Richard

David_S85 wrote:

You mentioned that you can't sell the software anymore. From what I understand, when you agree to the license on setup (and this goes for all commercial software I have ever purchased) you really can't re-sell software you have already purchased, as the license only gives you the right to use it.

That can't always be true, though, otherwise there would be no market for used computers, which almost always come with at least the OS. Or are the vendors just not willing to go to court over it because they fear the provision would be found unconscionable?

To the OP: I think you should first focus on restoring CS on your new machine, and I think Adobe will probably cooperate. It's unfortunate that we have to pay an Adobe tax on new cameras, but until there's real competition for Photoshop, it's just something we're stuck with.

Art Scott

Richard wrote:

It's unfortunate that we have to pay an Adobe tax on new cameras, but until there's real competition for Photoshop, it's just something we're stuck with.

Richard.........you do not have to pay that ADOBE TAX......just take an extra step in work flow and convert the RAW FILES to DNG.........the converter is free........I have been converting for a very long time because I still use CS and PS 7.......and since for some strange reason I want to keep my origianl raws (some minolta, some Nikon) I do the convert and embed the original raw into the DNG..................

David_S85

David_S85 wrote:

You mentioned that you can't sell the software anymore. From what I understand, when you agree to the license on setup (and this goes for all commercial software I have ever purchased) you really can't re-sell software you have already purchased, as the license only gives you the right to use it.

I stand corrected. But selling a working copy is a pain, apparently. Here's a thread from another forum about selling PS.

Jane B.

David_S85 wrote:

I stand corrected. But selling a working copy is a pain, apparently. Here's a thread from another forum about selling PS.

I clicked on the link you provided and would not go by that as the last post is from 2007! and the last I heard we are in 2009.

Jane B.

craig_d

David_S85 wrote:

You mentioned that you can't sell the software anymore. From what I understand, when you agree to the license on setup (and this goes for all commercial software I have ever purchased) you really can't re-sell software you have already purchased, as the license only gives you the right to use it.

As far as I know, there has been no final legal decision on whether these end-user licenses are even legally valid. I recall there was a case within the last few years where Autodesk was trying to prevent someone from selling their copy of Autocad on the grounds that they didn't "own", but had only "licensed" the software. The judge was not impressed by this idea, particularly since Autodesk's own web site used the term "buy" to describe what the user was doing when when he paid money to get the software. Another issue is that the license is supposed to be a contract between the software company and the user, but the user is not shown a copy of the alleged "contract" (the license text) before paying for the software, so in essence the software company is asking the user to commit to a contract before they will even allow him to know what the terms are.