PS requests re-activation… but nothing has changed -WHY?

GR
Posted By
Gary_R_Shepard
Dec 3, 2003
Views
275
Replies
2
Status
Closed
Hi –

I purchased the CS upgrade last month; installed it onto my new P4 computer. I have been enjoying it (while all the while taking note of the many disgruntled people who take issue with Adobe’s activation "scheme").

Today, when I was using CS, a message popped up telling me that my hardware profile "seemed" to have changed, and requested, no make that DEMANDED that I re-activate the product in order to keep using it.

The rub is that ABSOLUTELY NOTHING on my computer has changed since I installed CS. Yes, I have installed some software, but not one piece of hardware of any kind. What gives?

I have heard that Adobe allows installations onto two computers (is this correct?). I have only installed it onto one computer. However, now I have had to activate it twice on the same machine. Does this mean that I can’t install it onto my laptop? Or, worse yet, what if this message appears again? Will I be locked out of my legitimately purchased program by a software bug on the only computer that it is installed on?!

Who at Adobe can I talk to about this? Any help appreciated…

-zeldon

How to Improve Photoshop Performance

Learn how to optimize Photoshop for maximum speed, troubleshoot common issues, and keep your projects organized so that you can work faster than ever before!

V
viol8ion
Dec 3, 2003
All of these issues (and more) have been covered ad-nauseum in this forum. Do a search and you will find at least 20 topics dealing with these issues.
DP
Daryl_Pritchard
Dec 3, 2003
Zeldon,

As viol8tion mentions, you’ll find many related topics on activation if you just perform a search. Now, as to what might’ve somehow changed in your software to trigger the activation prompt, I’ve no idea. No software installation should’ve affected anything to my knowledge. On the other hand, if you had any sort of problem with something you installed that led you to going back to an earlier state via System Restore, that might affect PS CS activation. I gather that’s not the case since that is a significant enough event you’d probably have mentioned it.

But, apart from this and to offer some reassurance, you can re-activate as many times as you like on the same machine without it affecting your activation count. Over the past 2 weeks, I’ve been fighting problems with PS CS that found me restoring my system to pre-install times relative to when I installed PS CS. When I subsequently renstalled PS CS an was prompted that I had to immediately activate, there was no problem doing so. Through all the "PC gymnastics" I was going through, I may have re-activated PS CS 8-10 times with no problem doing so. The only time re-activation wasn’t immediately required was following a low-level drive format (eliminating the hard drive hash from activation) and the reinstall of a WinXP system image that had not recieved a PS CS installation. In other words, the install of PS CS thought this to be a new installation, and I was given the 30 days to activate notice. When I proceeded to activate, again the process was without incident.

Regards,

Daryl

Master Retouching Hair

Learn how to rescue details, remove flyaways, add volume, and enhance the definition of hair in any photo. We break down every tool and technique in Photoshop to get picture-perfect hair, every time.

Related Discussion Topics

Nice and short text about related topics in discussion sections