Photoshop Activation Issue

G
Posted By
GoldFrost
Jan 8, 2004
Views
354
Replies
8
Status
Closed
I have searched these forums, the knowledgebase, other forums, and even did a Google search for this issue. The closest thing I can find on this was a link on the Adobe site:

<http://www.adobe.com/activation/main.html>

The closest issue to what I see as a problem with Photoshop CS activation is the question on that link called "Do I have to reactivate if I reformat my hard drive?" The response was "as long as you don’t low-level format the drive."

After reading the information below, my question to anyone that does something similar to this is have you experienced the same issues with Photoshop CS after imaging a drive? If not, what software for drive imaging are you using?

Here is the scenario, issue, and suggestion that I sent to Adobe:

———- Message to Above ———————–

I have purchased, installed, and successfully activated Photoshop CS on Windows XP Home Edition. This suggestion relates to how your product activation works.

The scenario is that I have created an image of my main hard drive using Drive Image 2002 from PowerQuest. I do this for several reasons: in case I get a virus I go back to the last known good configuration, if during a new application install something goes wrong, I go back to the last image and try again to ensure a clean install, every new application I install I will go back to the last image to ensure the system is clean before installing then after installing re-image the drive, etc.

The problem with your Photoshop CS activation method comes up after I have successfully installed, activated the application, and burned an image. If I go back to that image, Photoshop CS requires reactivation due to system configuration changes.

The issue is that I need to periodically refresh the image and to have to reactivate Photoshop CS every time severely impacts my use of the application. This application is installed onto a laptop and so I may not be around an internet connection when I refresh the image. And since I cannot forecast when I have to refresh the image, it can happen at anytime. Your phone support is only 6am – 8pm PST Monday through Friday. For this activation to occur over the phone you need staffing on a 24×7 timeframe else the customers use is impacted.

I suggest that you develop a fix that will allow a user to refresh the image without having to reactivate the software. If Windows XP can handle image refreshes without reactivation, then so should your software.

———————————————————— ————— Gary T

Must-have mockup pack for every graphic designer 🔥🔥🔥

Easy-to-use drag-n-drop Photoshop scene creator with more than 2800 items.

G
GoldFrost
Jan 8, 2004
Well, I seem to have found the answer to my question within another thread:

dave milbut "System restore and instant reactivation" 12/30/03 12:40pm </cgi-bin/webx?14/0>

So no need to respond to this thread. I sure hope Adobe reworks their product activation process to accommodate image restores.
DP
Daryl_Pritchard
Jan 8, 2004
Hi Gary,

Yes, I’ve seen the same problem. When I first purchased PS CS, problems with it found me trying to isolate them by eventually going all the way back to a clean reinstall of WinXP and all software. My troubleshooting efforts involved creating several drive images (using Drive Image 7) as I incrementally added more and more software. Actually, all that was pointless since I learned that PS CS had problems on its own, with a clean WinXP installation and nothing else.

In any case, my process started with a low-level drive format that I performed after having previously installed and activated PS CS. Under this condition, as expected, a new installation of PS CS gave me the 30 day allowance for activation since there was no hard drive hash, registry entries, or any other records of the prior activation. However, once I did activate PS CS and made subsequent drive images, I seem to recall at least a few occasions in which restoration of an image did prompt me to reactivate PS CS even though nothing had changed about my system that should’ve necessitated that. I’d have expected reactivation to either always be required or never be required after an image restoration, but I don’t recall that being the case. I’ve no doubt that this is a bug in the activation process employed by PS CS and how it determines the need for reactivation. The same sort of problem applies to use of WinXP’s System Restore capability. To my knowlege from other similar discussions in the forum, Adobe is aware of the problem and hopefully is working toward providing a solution.

If you do have access to a telephone, then I don’t quite understand your concern about not having internet access. In many cases, where there is a phone, there is an internet connection. If the real issue is the question of dial-up access and you are in the U.S. (or Canada I presume), then you might consider installing NetZero for free internet access if your use is very light, as it would be if only using it to obtain PS CS activation. NetZero has free dial-up access in many major cities, and that would give you 24/7 activation access to Adobe. However, if your concern is more that of having internet access from a more remote location or perhaps not even having a phone available at all, then your only solution until Adobe provides a fix is to use an activation crack. EULA or not, I feel that if a PS CS user is in a remote location where phone/internet access is not readily available, then the use of an activation crack on a legally-owned copy of PS CS is fully warranted.

I will say that it seems odd to me that you’d need to restore a drive image very often. Periodic updates of a drive image seem reasonable enough, but normal use of my PCs rarely finds me needing to restore a drive image. I understand that some applications might be a complicated (MS Office and Norton SystemWorks come to mind) enough installation that, if problems arise, uninstalling them still leaves a system "dirtier" than if you simply reverted to a clean drive image. Your approach in keeping a clean system is certainly solid, but may be overkill…particularly when you know that PS CS is subject to requiring reactivation after a drive image is restored. Until Adobe provides a fix for the activation process, I’d suggest you minimize restoring drive images to what might be truly considered necessary. If that simply isn’t an option for you and you must perform frequent software installations/uninstallations on your system, then I only see use of an activation crack as a solution for now.

If you are frequently getting hit by viruses, I’d suggest a more proactive measure to prevent that from occurring…I’ve never had a virus on any of my PCs in the 9 years I’ve used them.

Daryl
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GoldFrost
Jan 8, 2004
Thanks for the feedback Daryl. It’s not just viruses that are a concern. I do have appropriate safeguards in place so I rarely get hit by viruses. 😉

But, the main thing in my workflow is that once I purchase new software and install it, I will install it on the cleanest possible configuration possible, which in this case is the last known good image. Why I do it this way is because I periodically install evaluation software on the system. Once I’m done I’ll remove the program. But, if I later install an app that I know will stay for a while, then I use the last known good configuration. In addition, continous web surfing can result in unknown spyware to be installed on one’s system. Though I have a few safeguards for that, I still feel safer to go back to a last good configuration that does not have web tracking remnants.

As far as it being an overkill, not really. I’ve been in system support for the last several years and have come to know how beneficial it is to have a good, solid, image of the system to fall back on. The system restores that normally come with a machine are pretty much useless.

As far as activating via a phone call in the field, yes, I will use that as an option if necessary through a cell call. But then again, the phone support is limited to certain hours. And there are some cases where I’m in the field without a phone or good cell coverage (thank you very much Sprint :-p). Though I rarely have to rebuild in the field, I’d still feel more at ease to know that if it comes down to it, I can perform it and be fully operational afterwards without having to go through additional hoops.

Finally, I have worked on numerous systems that have bogged down over time. This can be a result of surfing, program installations and removals, hardware installations (i.e. printers and such) and removals, application crashes, or whatever. The best solution for these systems is a complete rebuild. But since rebuilding can take a while (having to go back and reinstall all software, tweak all configuration and user settings), it is best to have a good, solid, image with all configuration and user settings in place to fall back on.

As I’ve mentioned before, I have several years of system support experience and even aided in the design and installation of network systems with 50,000+ seats for one of our bigger customers. The need of being able to do good, clean, system restores saves a lot of time, effort, and cost.
DP
Daryl_Pritchard
Jan 8, 2004
Gary,

I don’t dispute the value of having clean system images available for restoration of a system. Certainly if you’re checking out evaulation software a lot, there is a heightened risk of things going awry enough to warrant restoring an old image. And definitely spyware can be a problem…that is one thing I recently worked toward removal of, so I do appreciate what you’re saying. Not knowing much about your workflow, I thought perhaps you could back off on the frequency of image restoration, but maybe that’s not the case. So, you’ll just have to live with the reactivation need until Adobe provides a fix. While the use of a crack will also provide a remedy while waiting on Adobe, there is some risk assumed in using such software from unknown parties.

I’d say we have similar philosophies about the value of using system images. Whenever I rebuild my system, I commonly install the O/S and all drivers first, then image that for future use as a "basic" image, to save the time needed of starting truly from ground zero. When I encountered the problems with PS CS that I did and tried troubleshooting them, I knew I could easily go back to a basic image from 2002 and see how PS CS worked with that. When the problem still existed, my only recourse was to go back even farther…by installing the O/S clean after a low-level drive format. The problem still apparent, I could only conclude that PS CS was the source of the problem or else it was with the older hardware in my system, so my only choice was to live with the problem and try to avoid doing things that would aggravate it arising (accessing Photoshop Help ramdomly results in PS CS aborting, so I generally avoid using Help and refer to the manual instead).

Overall, I love being able to use drive images for system restores. After fighting with software backup utilities and rarely being able to use them for getting back to a truly cleaner system state, drive imaging made them obsolete for my use and actually provided for a much faster restoration.

Regards,

Daryl
SS
Stephanie_Schaefer
Jan 8, 2004
Gold,

If you’re using Drive Image, create an image that includes the Master Boot Record. You’ll need to use some command line switches to capture and restore this additional data but it should allow you to proceed without a reactivation.
G
GoldFrost
Jan 8, 2004
Yes Daryl, sounds like our philosophies are quite similar. 🙂 In my original post, there was a link to a Q&A page on the Adobe site that talked about having to re-activate the software after a low-level format.

Stephanie, I’ll try that tonight. However, based on the information in a similar thread ( dave milbut "System restore and instant reactivation" 12/30/03 12:40pm </cgi-bin/webx?14/0> ), I would be surprised if it worked. It if does then great, I’ll be satisfied. If not, then I’ll be remain disappointed.

I’ll let ya know what I come up with. Thanks!
DP
Daryl_Pritchard
Jan 8, 2004
From that other thread about System Restore, I do see others talk both of success (no reactivation needed) and failure (reactivation is needed) when restoring a drive using Drive Image. So, while use of System Restore seems to consistently require reactivation of PS CS, the use of Drive Image or Ghost may vary, seemingly depending upon whether or not the MBR was included in the image and likewise restored. Although I don’t recall any Drive Image 7 options regarding inclusion of the MBR when building an image, or of restoring the MBR, perhaps some of those images I dealt with did restore the MBR. That would explain the mixed results I observed and it has been too long since I went through all this to remember what options I exercised.

Daryl
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GoldFrost
Jan 21, 2004
Ok, update to the issue. I went out and bought the latest version of DriveImage (DriveImage7) and used that to build and reinstall the image (the DriveImage 2002 version has a restore MBR switch, but that required a command line launch of the app which I preferred not to). As per the helpful tips from your feedback, I did make sure the restore of the image included the MBR, (have to boot the system from the DriveImage7 CD to restore the primary OS partition and then select "restore MBR"). The result is that the reactivation was not required after restoring the image. 🙂

Thanks for your tips!

Gary T

Must-have mockup pack for every graphic designer 🔥🔥🔥

Easy-to-use drag-n-drop Photoshop scene creator with more than 2800 items.

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