I can't believe that CS3 is so bad!!!

[Angel...@adobeforums.com]

I've been using CS3 for some weeks without problems until I've installed the updates from Adobe Update. After the update all the suite application started to freeze during start of close. Then I got activation warnings that I have 5 days temporary activation.

I've totally uninstalled and reinstalled many time (it takes halve a day with such nice slow installer). I've used the CS3 cleaning tool and even searched manually for every trace of Adobe software on the HD and Windows registry. Nothing fixed it. I've losed four days of my work trying to fix CS3!!!

I opened a case on the support site and I've got no reply for a week. Finally contacted by phone and the "tech" support send me a document that suggest to reformat my HD and reinstall!!!

I can't believe it. I've payed a lot for CS3 and never had such problems with any software I've used before.

Now I will have to spend many more hours to reformat, install and configure all my system again and hope it doesn't fail again.

[Peter...@adobeforums.com]

Angel,

First, are you certain you were properly activated to begin with? Did you ever get a confirmation message?

I personally had issues with activation and registration until I made Internet Explorer the default browser and reduced the Java security settings to allow everything. I have run all the updates since without incident.

Before you re-format and re-install you should browse this forum and look at some of the solutions that others have found. One might work for you.

[Angel...@adobeforums.com]

Hi Peter,

I'm totally sure I activated the software. It's just click a button and wait for "your software has been activated message".

But then it starts to behave like crazy. All the applications freeze when opening or closing. Also I can't even deactivate the software. In fact all the activate and deactivate options are greyed out in the menu. That makes no sense. And sometimes I got a warning about a temprary activations for 5 days.

[Nancy]

Hi Angel:

It has to be a Vista related problem. I have installed the updates on XP
Pro and everything is working without incident. Unfortunately, that's not
an answer . . only confirmation that it's not the updates that are at fault.

--
Nancy Gill
Adobe Community Expert
Author: Dreamweaver 8 e-book for the DMX Zone
Co-Author: Dreamweaver MX: Instant Troubleshooter (August, 2003)
Technical Editor: Dreamweaver CS3: The Missing Manual,
DMX 2004: The Complete Reference, DMX 2004: A Beginner's Guide
Mastering Macromedia Contribute
Technical Reviewer: Dynamic Dreamweaver MX/DMX: Advanced PHP Web Development

<Angel...@adobeforums.com> wrote in message
news:3bc44...@webcrossing.la2eafNXanI...

[nmin...@adobeforums.com]

Aside from the many, many issues just trying to "install" the product, we've spent a lot of money on the upgrade and wasted expensive man hours trying to solve this. There is no way I'm formating company drives to install this product. We are issuing a company wide report to "not upgrade" to CS3. And, we've recommend that ALL of our customers hold off as well. Adobe should have gotten this correct before releasing this very big update to their suite.
Also, since when does it take almost 45minutes to install and another 45min to remove a software package??!! I can install an entire OS in the same amount of time.

[John_H...@adobeforums.com]

Just to echo nmincone's post. "We are issuing a company wide report to "not upgrade" to CS3. And, we've recommend that ALL of our customers hold off as well. Adobe should have gotten this correct before releasing this very big update to their suite."

We have a significant number of clients relying on us for purchasing decisions, and are now advising that they stick to XP Pro/CS2 rather than trying Vista/CS3. We're aware that some of our employees have successfully installed XP Pro/CS3 but when it takes 4 hours to install the downloaded version on a 2Ghz/3Gb RAM dual core machine (timed install) we really want to be billing someone for this time!

[JC_Wea...@adobeforums.com]

Yes, Yes, and Yes!

Purchased the download of Production Premium CS3 and did a complete install on Vista Biz Premium. Later discovered only some of the programs had installed (none of the core Creative Suite programs!). After 40 minutes on the phone with Adobe... passed from one customer service rep to the next... the rep advised me to INSTALL EACH PROGRAM INDIVIDUALLY!

This is a mind numbing chore to be sure - as the install lets you select which program to install but installs ADOBE PRODUCTION PREMIUM CS3 and SHARED PROGRAMS EVERYTIME I TRY TO INSTALL A NEW PROGRAM.

FUN!

[MINELY_...@adobeforums.com]

Hello People:

This is my first post. I am looking for information on whether or not to buy a CS3. I need a design tool right away, since I am starting on a new design career and small business.

I don't want to spend the whole lot of $1,799 because I have no previous versions installed.

Can anyone PLEASE give me some recommendations?

[JC_Wea...@adobeforums.com]

We're all complaining about CS3 - truth is problems (like these) are to be expected with major revisions in software (especially when coupled to a major OS change like VISTA). That said, CS3 is worth the headache. The tools are extremely sophisticated and far and away better than anything Adobe has produced to date. Programs like Photoshop and Illustrator and Flash SET THE STANDARD for any creative discipline or business. Bottom line, if you want to do business as a designer (especially as a designer!) you MUST use ADOBE software.

Bite the bullet. Take the plunge. It may not be a snap, but it will be worth it!

[Peter...@adobeforums.com]

Minely,

First, any career requires you to properly equip yourself to do the job, and $2000 isn't a lot of money in the grand scheme of things, although I'm sure it seems that way now. Many banks will lend you this kind of money to start a new business and let you pay them back over the course of a year or so as work comes in. That's how I financed my own first business about 30 years ago.

Second, if you haven't yet left school you still qualify for educational pricing. The entire Design Premium suite, for example is less than $600 from education vendors. After graduation you are allowed to continue to use the license commercially, and you are on the same upgrade path as a standard license.

Peter

[Jay Jhabrix]

The installation stinks.... i still haven't been able to install CS3 Design Premium... XP SP2

Cheers... and more cheers! As it's the only way to retain sanity...

[Typ...@adobeforums.com]

All,

I've just spent two days trying to install CS3 on Windows XP Pro. I purchased three licenses for my department to use. However, it will not install, and no log is generated. The one error message that made any sense was that my "media.cab" file was corrupt. Just try to find a new copy of "media.cab" anywhere!

I called Customer Service, who in turn transferred me to Technical Support, who dropped the call (luckily I had the foresight to get their number first) so I spent a total of 40 minutes on hold, only to be told that they needed the serial number.

I got a boxed set on DVD, but there is no serial number where they said it should be. So, they transferred me back to Customer Service, who treated me like an idiot because the serial number is not on the box.

Then to find our purchasing agent had an email from adobelicensing about how to retrieve the serial number (nothing about any of this on the Adobe support web pages), which requires a login ID# (supplied) and a password (conveniently NOT supplied). So, when I ask for a new password, the web interface tells me "thanks" and then says it will be sent... but to whom? It never asked me for MY email.

Aside from that, the original problem is that it won't install. I've been through all the troubleshooting and have even used the msconfig command to disable all services and startup software and copied the installer to the desktop to try it from there. In this configuration, it doesn't generate any messages other than "Install failed" for each and every program except for Shared Services, which installs fine (it says right here...)

I won't even go into the ongoing issues I have with CS2 activation on my Mac at home... that's been going on for over six months. I got it *partially* activated but my Image Ready and Illustrator stopped working and won't start up at all, despite re-installing with the new keys afforded by Adobe (after a full day of hassling and being made to feel like a criminal... they should treat long-time legitimate customers as friends, not as pirates -- I've been using licensed Adobe products since Photoshop v2.1 back in 1994.

Now it might be that the hassles outweigh the benefits. I am NOT a happy Adobe customer at this point.

Oh... and a nice automated response from adobelicensing lets me know that they will get back to me within two business days... after I've already spent two business days of unproductive hassle on this.

I hope they get their act together soon.

-- Typeaux

[Peter...@adobeforums.com]

While I recognize that a lot of people are experiencing installation issues, and I had a lot of trepidation about it myself,I just wanted to report that I have just finished my second installation of CS3 Design Premium on XP pro, SP2, and it went without incident.

I did this on my Toshiba laptop, which hardly qualifies as a "clean" system in terms of extra "stuff" loaded by the OEM, and the whole process, including prep, basic installation, activation and updates took around two hours.

I took the following precautions before starting:
Make sure to log in as an administrator,
Uninstall Flash Player 8 (I had to download the uninstaller from Adobe.com),
Run MSConfig and disable all non-essential services and all non-essential items in the startup items, particularly anything to do with Anti-virus, spyware protection or third party firewalls,then reboot,
Be sure the Windows firewall is disabled,
Set Internet Explorer as the default browser, be sure Java is enabled, and turn off pop-up blocking (may not be necessary, but Java certainly is).

When installation was complete, including updates, I reset all my system settings and restored all the services and startups that were disabled by running MSConfig again and choosing "Normal Startup."

I strongly suspect that, at least on XP, people experiencing problems are not doing all they should to prevent conflicts during the installation routine.

Peter

[Ia...@adobeforums.com]

With respect...CS3 was clearly not ready for release and not fit for the purpose that it was intended for.
Here in Australia the Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) has been asked to request its withdrawal from sale with the further requirement that Adobe advise stock holders of the possible material impact on the companies share price.
This is the most appropriate way to deal with a fundamentally flawed release.
It is likely that Australia's move will be widely duplicated in Asia with Adobe required to refund hundreds-of-thousands of purchasers.
Hopefully, the company will survive this process althought this is certainly not guaranteed.
Maybe it's time for Adobe to advise all CS3 purchasers of the very serious problems experienced by many thousands of users and to completely re-write their installation routines.

[John_H...@adobeforums.com]

While CS3 in terms of software features and integrations is wonderful, in terms of installation and licensing under Vista this clearly does not work. And it is impossible to de-activate software that has 'broken' licensing to make it work on another machine. It simply fails.

Installing on my XP Pro Toshiba laptop went without hitch. Installing on every Windows Vista system I've tried has been pure pain.

With respect Peter, many of us are design and/or development professionals and know how our computers work. A typical install for a 'new' CS3 machine for us will be

* Windows Vista Business Edition
* Microsoft Office 2007 Professional
* Adobe CS3 Web/Design Premium
* Microsoft SQL Server
* Microsoft Visual Studio 2005

...and iTunes for some of the designers! Hardly a load of junk and we generally install CS3 first. All of our installs are failing licensing, and all are (obviously) legal! There are also warnings about installing under XP - Adobe only say CS3 is meant to work under Vista!

[Peter...@adobeforums.com]

With respect...CS3 was clearly not ready for release and not fit for the
purpose that it was intended for.

Installer problems, and I don't deny that some people are experiencing problems, particularly on Vista, don't add up "not ready for release" or "not fit for the purpose." I've been using CS3 as a professional in a production environment for the last month and it has behaved quite well -- as well as any first release of a new version I've ever used.

I'd say that the installer could use improvement in the areas of pre-flight checking and error catching/reporting, but laying the blame for Vista issues entirely at Adobe's feet is disingenuous. Like all new Windows releases Vista will be a work-in-progress for a year or more, and Adobe engineers don't have any better crystal ball than you or I for knowing what changes to the published specs developers use are going to be made.

Further, development is a long cycle that began well before Vista was released. Engineers were forced to work with pre-release versions of Vista during most of the cycle, and I would doubt that they were able to test the installer on all the major OEM configurations before release. Should they have waited to do that kind of testing, possibly, but without reason to suspect trouble I can understand the decision to proceed. The possibility of a major accident on your route to work doesn't usually stop you from leaving at your regular time.

There are also warnings about installing under XP - Adobe only say CS3
is meant to work under Vista!

Here are the published system requirements for CS3 Design Premium on Windows. XP SP2 is plainly listed as supported:

* Intel® Pentium® 4, Intel Centrino®, Intel Xeon®, or Intel Core™ Duo (or compatible) processor
* Microsoft® Windows® XP with Service Pack 2 or Windows Vista™ Home Premium, Business, Ultimate, or Enterprise (certified for 32-bit editions)
* 1GB of RAM
* 5GB of available hard-disk space (additional free space required during installation)
* 1,024x768 monitor resolution with 16-bit video card
* DVD-ROM drive
* QuickTime 7.1.2 software required for multimedia features
* Some 3D features in Adobe Photoshop® CS3 Extended require a Microsoft DirectX 9 capable graphics card with at least 64MB of VRAM
* Internet or phone connection required for product activation
* Broadband Internet connection required for Adobe Stock Photos* and other services

John, I honestly don't know why people are having problems, but I can say from anecdotal evidence that problems on Vista are hardly restricted to Adobe products. I also don't know a lot of "professionals" who would by choice build a production or enterprise system on untested products, but that's pretty irrelevant because CS is intended for everyone and is advertised as Vista compatible.

The fact of the matter is that CS3 CAN be successfully installed on both XP and Vista. While an unknown number of users (represented by the several dozen vocal posters here and presumably on other forums), and it may well be hundreds or thousands, have had trouble, many users have had no problem at all, and they have no reason to post anywhere. However, there are far more new postings on the forums regarding questions about using CS3 than there are about installation failures, so my bet would be there are more success stories than failures.

If the software was inherently defective nobody would be successful. The only logical conclusion is that there is some particular bit of system configuration, as yet unidentified, that is at fault.

Peter

[Peter...@adobeforums.com]

Adobe has no more ability to test every possible system configuration than you or I. Have you seriously looked at your system and turned off instant messengers, file-sharing addons, browser toolbars, and all the other little things that so many people are fond of, but can interact with the OS and other applications in strange and unpredictable ways?

If you run MSconfig, you can look at services and hide all MS services. What's left? Do you know what it does? Is it essential for machine operation during an installation? If not, turn it off. Then go the startup items tab and turn off anything that isn't part of Windows or known to you to be required for your computer to operate. You might have to do some Google work to find out what some of these entries are. There is very little on most systems I've seen that actually needs to be running, compared to the amount of stuff that has been installed and is set to launch at startup.

If I knew, specifically, what externals were a problem, I'd certainly tell you, but I don't, although I've seen mention of the Google Desktop as being one.

Peter

[nmin...@adobeforums.com]

Peter,( respectfully) you typed a long post to come to the same conclusion this thread is trying to communicate...

"The only logical conclusion is that there is some particular bit of system configuration, as yet unidentified, that is at fault."

Adobe needs to "identify" its own installation problems. It has cost many of its most devout users a lot of unnecessary time and money, creative pros with very little time left in their schedule deadlines to experiment with solutions. And by the way, each reinstall takes almost 2 hours at each attempt to get it right. Are they going to cover those users for their time and money? We are speaking of "installation issues", the most basic functions of software is to first get it installed. We're not disputing the application suite itself. Something is definitely wrong here, whatever it is, it never appeared in CS or CS2, and it's not our job to find it. Not at this price.

[Ia...@adobeforums.com]

Peter ......no, I don’t and have never used the Google Desktop or the dozens of other annoying add-ons software developers keep pushing.
Amongst the many things I tried was booting with all services switched off, installing with a different user account, running Adobe’s cleanup tool at level 4 and manually editing the registry to remove all reference to Adobe, CS3 programs etc...
Ultimately, the only solution was to trash the existing installation and re-install Vista and CS3 (and MS Office 2007 and all the other programs I use).

According to an Adobe Asia Pacific support person (I think she was in the Philippines) the problems I and many other users have experienced are the common experience of people with previous Adobe Creative Suite installations on their computer.
Simply uninstalling the older version (in my case CS2.3) does not work .
It is concerning that Adobe appears with CS3 to have implemented a heavily security laden installation and activation routine designed to stop piracy that is both incompatible with previous versions of its own products and at the expense of its customers.

Based on my experience and the hundreds of posts in the Adobe Creative Suite Users Forum, I believe Adobe needs to commit to ensuring its products work as advertised..
If the issues you refer to exist, then Adobe must give equal prominence to them as they do to claims for the product.
A quick glance at the Adobe home page illustrates that this is currently not the case.

I believe Adobe could avoid much of the angst clearly evident amongst its users by acknowledging the problems up-front on their home page and offering as much advice as they can.
The company cannot claim that it has no knowledge of the problems.
This forum features hundreds of posts making the issues, if not the solutions, clear.
The current poor handling of issues and references to a knowledge-base that either doesn’t acknowledge or shies from the problem serves only to establish the image of a corporate giant unconcerned by the experience of its customers.

Adobe’s acknowledgement of the issues and up-front advice on the reinstallation of the operating system - the only viable solution - could avoid hundreds of wasted non-productive hours by its customers
While I recognise that’s not what customers want to hear and that it does not reflect well on Adobe, such advice would be responsible and ultimately in the company’s interests.

Ian

[nmin...@adobeforums.com]

Peter, in one of your previous posts in another thread you mention this possible solution....

"I took the following precautions before starting:
Make sure to log in as an administrator,
Uninstall Flash Player 8 (I had to download the uninstaller from Adobe.com),
Run MSConfig and disable all non-essential services and all non-essential items in the startup items, particularly anything to do with Anti-virus, spyware protection or third party firewalls,then reboot,
Be sure the Windows firewall is disabled,
Set Internet Explorer as the default browser, be sure Java is enabled, and turn off pop-up blocking (may not be necessary, but Java certainly is).

When installation was complete, including updates, I reset all my system settings and restored all the services and startups that were disabled by running MSConfig again and choosing "Normal Startup."

Do you know if this has been successful for any other users? Because I have to admit, although I'd like to give it one more try, I don't know if I have another 2 hours left in me to attempt this again. These CS3 packages are being sent back tomorrow (10 copies).

[kev...@adobeforums.com]

I think the problem is that Adobe is screwing around with machine-level stuff in an attempt to thwart piracy. I think they're messing with the Master Boot Record in a way that their own uninstallers can't cope with. That's one issue. The other issue is Vista. It's an atrocity in its own right. (It's XP dumbed down and heavy-laden with all manner of DRM and then prettied up to make the masses think it's "new and improved." Put lipstick on a pig and you have a pig wearing lipstick, I say ... but that's another story for another forum.) Whatever the problem, I'm certain there's a fix for it, but it certainly seems slow in coming. I'm guessing Adobe is being so tight-lipped about it because "solving" the problem at it's simplest level probably entails either revealing or dismantling whatever piracy protection mechanism is built into the install routine.

[shadow...@adobeforums.com]

Luckily some of us choose to install the trials on test machines and once
saw that it wouldn't work decided against buying a flawed product.

I bet 99% of the people can live without the so-called new features until a
bug fix/service pack is released. That way they don't a lot of wheel
spinning because of poorly executed installation routines.

<Ia...@adobeforums.com> wrote in message
news:3bc44...@webcrossing.la2eafNXanI...

[Peter...@adobeforums.com]

IanM and nmincone,

I followed essentially the same procedure on both of my computers, but both are XP, SP2, not Vista.

I really think Adobe would be doing more if they could identify where the problems lie, but there are so many variables and so little information on system configurations that finding one cause, or even ten, is like looking for a needle in a haystack. They HAVE put up some KB techdocs to address what the do know.

I've not needed to run either the cleanup script from Adobe (no beta software on these machines -- I depend on them to make a living) and I didn't run the MSI cleanup, though I've found it useful in the past and would absolutely run it after a failed CS3 install.

If previous versions is an issue, it must be restricted to Vista or be related to some other additional bit of software or configuration. I've got at least two prior versions (except Acrobat which gets uninstalled) of all the previously Adobe-branded products in the Design Premium suite, and three of most, so I can continue to work on legacy documents as natives if necessary and to collaborate with others who haven't upgraded yet (I don't see a lot of ID2 docs, but there are still plenty of CS users out there).

I really do sympathize with you, and would no doubt be equally frustrated if I had the same problems. I just don't feel it is productive for people to say that the software doesn't work, generally, when clearly it can and does work for a large number of users. Far better to describe your situation in detail, including hardware and software, and what you have tried. There are a LOT of people who read these forums and maybe one of them is similarly configured and has found a solution that they can share.

For the record, my desktop is a P-4 3.2 gHz that I built from parts, 2 gb Ram, a third-party AGP video card (I think GigaByte) powered by a Radeon 9200 chip with 128 mb vRAM and using Microsoft's drivers from XP, to which is connected a Sony Artisan monitor (which requires a lot of software to run the colorimeter and calibration), an Intel D865G PERL motherboard with on-board Intel networking and on-board audio, a variety of Maxtor PATA hard drives, A Samsung CD-RW drive and a Lite-on DVD-RW drive.

This is an older system that I was running Win2K on until May, when I installed a new System hard drive (I use swappable bays for easy backup and recovery in case of disaster) and installed XP Pro, SP2, Office 2000, and a variety of Adobe and Quark applications, along with utilities like Conversions Plus, WS-FTP pro, Winzip, Stuffit, Norton Systemworks Premier 2005 (the last year for Norton that didn't do serious damage, in my opinion) which includes Ghost for nightly backups, and various scanner and printer drivers. I run Roxio version 6 for burning, rather than Nero, but that's mostly because I got started on that path years ago with a previous drive, not because I think there's anything wrong with Nero.

Most versions of software are a few years old, except the Adobe products and things that need to be up-to-date for my work. XP is fully patched, and Office is as patched as possible for the version, and the new OS was up and running for about a month (and that's 24/7) before trying to install CS3. My first attempt failed, but not because of any installer issue -- it turned out to be a faulty DVD drive I installed (brand new) while upgrading the OS, and once that was pulled and the old drive reinstalled I had no trouble.

This machine also has a second data drive with years of accumulated work.

My laptop is a Toshiba P105 series with wide screen, Core-duo processor, 2 gigs ram and 200 gb hard drive, and a DVD burner. I has a few things Toshiba on it, plus pretty much the same software I installed on the desktop so I can work on the road, including older versions of Adobe apps and a couple of years of important client data. I specifically bought this unit BEFORE Vista came pre-installed, and I received a free upgrade, if the day ever comes I think it is safe, and worthwhile, to install it.

Peter

[Peter...@adobeforums.com]

so-called new features

Nothing "so-called" about the new find/change, independent transparency, text variables, etc.

But you're right, many, even probably most users can "live" without them, but for those who use them they are real time-savers or design expanders.

[shadow...@adobeforums.com]

Well, until many of us can actually get it installed and working on our
machines, it's still "so-called"....

<Peter...@adobeforums.com> wrote in message
news:3bc44...@webcrossing.la2eafNXanI...

[Brutus_...@adobeforums.com]

No problems with installing CS3 on either my XP box or my OSX box. I wonder if this is purely a Vista issue.

[Peter...@adobeforums.com]

I wonder if this is purely a Vista issue.

Apparently not entirely, but my impression is it is more common on Vista. And there are people with success stories on Vista, too, so this is kind of like the noise in your car that never manifests when you take it to the shop and the mechanic goes out for a spin.

[nmin...@adobeforums.com]

Peter- all XP SP2 machines in my experiences...

I want to post a follow-up. I convinced a client to allow me to take a version of their CS3 home with me to try on my personal computer. I took Peter's tip and turned off everything but MS items in MSCONFIG and rebooted. I attempted an install and guess what... everything but Version Cue installed. I'm not even going to look into why only that app didn't install but this is a monumental difference than what I've seen elsewhere.
I also agree that the problems must have something to do with either thwarting piracy (as suggested) or for the Installers update feature. IMHO I say this because the only relevant apps that I turned off in MSCONFIG were virus, anti-spam and firewall apps. This would explain why in business environments where these stop gaps are everywhere many must be having problems.

[kelly...@adobeforums.com]

well, i am so P O'd. I spent the 1700.00 as well, i get, for the ummmm, 7th time, install failed! i have had it, and nobody at adobe can help me! I don't know what to do! Kelly

[shadow...@adobeforums.com]

Return it and wait for the service pack.

Then once they do release a service pack, do NOT but it, but download the
Trial version to see if your issues are fixed.

<kelly...@adobeforums.com> wrote in message
news:3bc44...@webcrossing.la2eafNXanI...

[Heather Bell]

I had the problem on XP pro. I spent hours on phone with Adobe, they walked me through the exact steps Peter described, as well as changing the default browser to Mozilla, and changing the user, and changing the msconfig settings, using the cleaner... on and on and on. What we ended up with was me installing CS3 on a new computer and relegating the old PC to strictly email and print server duty. I'd had CS3 Beta on the old machine. The theories about the new piracy settings are probably right. Apparently there was some component of the Beta that my computer felt it was "using" and could not delete, so nothing but a wipe was going to get rid of it so the full release could install. PIA.
I will also say some of the new stuff is quite kewl. I really like a lot of the new ID features.
On the other hand each program has crashed several times, which CS2 didn't ever do unless I was processing a huge photoshop file.
I'm hoping not to run into any of the other problems some people of found with updates and licensing randomly not working. It's been a couple months so I've got my fingers crossed. If I could go back to when this all started, I would have never loaded the Beta (was not a tester, they just released an early version to Service Providers) and I'd have stuck with CS2, but as my time was already wasted beyond measure I figured I was at LEAST going to get the new package out of the deal. I have not plans to download and install my MAC version until the installation nightmare posts taper off though.

[Peter...@adobeforums.com]

Shadowsfolly,

Then once they do release a service pack, do NOT but it, but download
the Trial version to see if your issues are fixed.

I believe that in the past the trial versions for download were not updated with new fixes, so I don't know that that's much of a solution.

Heather,

There's been nothing like this as far as installation issues on the Mac platform, as far as I can tell from having look at the forum, so I wouldn't let that be a deterrent. I suspect this is because there are fewer variables working with one one manufacturer and a single OS (albeit on two chip architectures).

Peter

[shadow...@adobeforums.com]

Typically they have updated the trial versions, though very slowly. So there
can be quite a wait after a bug fix is released and it's incorporation into
the Trial version.

<Peter...@adobeforums.com> wrote in message
news:3bc44...@webcrossing.la2eafNXanI...

[Heather Bell]

Peter, thanks for the info, but I've seen a couple MAC installation issues discussed. The fact of the matter is, I simply can't risk it. I am THE graphics department, I am the only way art gets designed, proofs get out and plates get to my pressman. If I'm down, the shop is down. The PC issue thankfully happened in a "slowish" time, but still backlogged me. It's not simply a matter of one of the computers being down. It's a matter of the computer being down and the only person who can fix it (me) torn between fixing that problem and getting any other work out. Waiting isn't going to kill me. There is nothing in the CS3 package that actually makes my life any easier, just some kewl additions, so it simply isn't worth even a 2% chance that an attempted installation would mess up the MAC, or current CS2 package on it. I'll keep an eye out. Probably in another 3 to 6 months I'll consider it.

[Peter...@adobeforums.com]

Well, I admit I haven't done a lot of trial downloads, so maybe you're correct. I hope so. That leaves the question of how do you know when the trial is updated?

[Patricia...@adobeforums.com]

Welcome to the club! I just bought CS3 15 days ago. It worked well and today I received a message: "Uninstall and install it again". Very wrong advice! I spent the whole day trying to reinstall it and calling to customer service. Finally, they transferred my call to tech support and they dropped it!

[shanem...@adobeforums.com]

couple of things i found with the install and comments...

comment: this is one of the worst installs i have ever went thru. (i have 12 yrs exp of installing programs, OS's, building systems etc...)

here was the order of things
1. downloaded DW single to install
2. purchased a trial dvd
3. purchased the prem suite via new media

ON: hp 8230 laptop with Pmobile 1.86ghz and 2 gigs of ram... so its not a slow machine.

had the single DW installed 20 mins or so worked fine. then installed fireworks from the trial dvd another 30 mins and worked fine.

after purchase i tried to enter my serial number, fireworks took the serial but would not activate it (to many activations) DW would not take the serial at all, bad serial number. hmm...

ok... i un-installed DW (30 mins) and tried to re-install it from the purchased media but when it got to the end (1 hour later) it kept asking me to insert the DVD on the fireworks part. none of the dvds in the purchased media worked at this point. finally i had to cancel and un-install everything...

un-installed everything (took 1 hr) then re-installed everything from the purchased media (took 1 hr)... FINALLY! the serial worked and activated... about 5 hours of time later...

final comment: that was just painful and i wasted a ton of time and money on this. i am not a happy customer. even if the products work great at this point i have a bad taste from the install and activation process...

[nmin...@adobeforums.com]

That's really what is upsetting most users here is the pure amount of wasted energy and time solving install issues. Heather is right in mentioning that many people are not extremely technical and do not have the benefit of time or extended resources like IT depts, where you can say "hey install this for me" and then go to lunch.
Also, the method I tried that worked on my home PC begs the question, why do I need to be installed as Administrator to install this? In recent memory I've never had to do that before. Also, a small poll of my work acquaintances tell me they are not even sure "what" their administrator password is on they're PC's.
One last comment, and I believe I know why they did it, but I am still dumbfounded as to how in the very first release of an acquired package of products (DW , FW and Flash) did Adobe decide to separate Fireworks from Dreamweaver into two distinctive suites (Design Premium and Web Premium). I would have waited for CS4 before I divorced the two, I know they want to push PS for web design use, but could they have been more obvious? FW has always been billed as the companion to DW and many users who have CS3 are upset for the loss of FW in their Design Suite update. This is my experience, your miles may vary.

[Michael...@adobeforums.com]

I'd like to chime in and say that for as much money as people are spending on these programs, they feel rushed out the door with insufficient testing. I purchased the Master Suite which I'm attempting to use under WinXP (32-bit). Photoshop CS3's interface corrupts itself if more than 1 document is open at a time. Tried using Premiere Pro CS3. It crashes while trying to select a font in the title screen window. So many serious crash and hang problems may not be totally unexpected with a new release version, but they are still unacceptable to a paying customer. Fortunately all the CS2 stuff still seems to work or I'd be really upset. There needs to be some serious attention paid to fixing these types of issues with all due haste or I foresee Adobe facing a class action lawsuit.

[Troy_F...@adobeforums.com]

With all the problems I'm having with CS3 and my graphics card, I opened a ticket with ATI to see if they can figure out where the problem exists. My first ticket with them is in regards to After Effects CS3 crashing upon trying to use the OpenGL plugin. Once I get that sorted, I'll move on to the Adobe CS3 products causing the VPU to stop responding to driver communications.

[nmin...@adobeforums.com]

Follow-up: I did another CS3 installation for PC today. This time I did not do the MSCONFIG change and reboot, nor did I log in as administrator but I did log-in to an account that had "administrator access". This machine has CS2 installed already. I removed the CS2 fist and installed the CS3. Again, took about 50min, but on this PC it also went off without a hitch. More to report as it happens.

[Bill...@adobeforums.com]

I have tried all suggestions from the forum/discussion boards that I have found. Adobe should be ashamed at the crap installation program they gave us. I wonder how many people actually loaded it without problem. I am on a fully loaded MACBOOK PRO.

--b

[John...@adobeforums.com]

what you may need to do is ....disable your Vista User Account completely when installing & installing updates ...thats what i needed to do

no probs on a Mac though :o)

Vista...Microsoft ...really suck big time :o(((

save yourself a whole alot of stress & buy a Mac !!! ;o)

peace John

[Peter...@adobeforums.com]

John,

Thanks for the user account suggestion. I'm sure it will be helpful to some users.

Over here, though, we try to avoid the kind of platform partisanship nonsense you spouted at the end. Macintosh vs. Windows is mostly a matter of personal preference at this point. I use both, and I can assure you there is plenty of stress to go around on both.

Peter

[John...@adobeforums.com]

thats your opinion dude ...& you have every right to it
just like i have the right to my opinion

iam a web designer, graphics & animation specialist

& i have been awarded by Max

purchased CS3 the day it was released

have never had any prob's on a Mac to date ...period !

why others seem to have problems ...including you my friend is a mystery to me

my guess is only people who are running cracked versions !!!
& people that dont really know how to work a computer may have problems ..that's just my 2 cents ! ;o)

[John...@adobeforums.com]

but to set the record straight ...i haven't had many problems on Vista
either ...except installing & installing plugins & components & rendering

1000 frame "frame by frame animations" ...all i get with Vista is
Flash is not responding !

then the whole system crashes & i lose all my work &
then Vista takes half an hour to try & process the error :o(((

peace John

[nmin...@adobeforums.com]

Regarding Mac vs. PC which is really a subject for another thread... I am an independent consultant who works in many different locations and many types of homogeneous network environments. I have to add my two cents here in saying we never experience the problems Windows machines give us on Macs, ever. The biggest problem we've seen from applications is a corrupt preference file that needed to be deleted and recreated to solve. We've had Windows machines that worked on Friday, and come Monday would only boot up to a blue screen. And they were off all weekend!
Although Macs aren't perfect, being based on BSD Unix makes them an extremely stable computing environment. Windows is a very funny animal.

[John...@adobeforums.com]

yes this thread is going abit off topic ...my fault ! ;o)

but the point to all this is Vista's User Accounts is a killer !

80% of the time ...it does not allow anything to install properly & then it kind of starts a chain reaction that causes a whole bunch of other problems

Mac's are for professionals & will always be for proffesionals
but yes even Apple is not perfect ...but hey at least they try to be

Microsoft & Pc co's at the moment are robbing people blind
70 % of PC's are Made In China ....in other words "garbage"

[Ia...@adobeforums.com]

With respect, Microsoft Vista's User Account strategy has nothing whatsoever to do with CS3's installation problems.
Nor is there any inherent problem with installation's in Vista - having installed dozens of programs on multiple Vista computers, the only major problem I have experienced is with CS3 which is very clearly an Adobe issue rather than a Microsoft one.
The other programs I've had problems with are legacy products (ironically Apple's iTunes being one of them) and it's the same with hardware.
As for for your racist comments on PC's Made in China, here in Australia and the Asia Pacific region generally we see a lot things built in the US the same way - often inferior products slapped together by lazy and inefficient workers who would rather argue about their supposedly superior rights than compete.
BTW you might not have noticed but Apple's market positioning is that a consumer products company.
It's Microsoft that develops and markets the professional products such as Windows Server, Exchange etc...that occupies the professional IT space.

[Bill...@adobeforums.com]

I don't think there is anywhere near enough info to guess DRIVE problems. After uninstalling stuff...loading...uninstalling...loading some combination finally worked. This was on my MAC. Doesn't matter anymore...now that CS3 suite is installed! What a pain I went through for 3 days.

-b

[mark_a...@adobeforums.com]

Attempted to install CS3 Master Collection and had problems. Called Customer Support (an oxymoron) and was told by somebody in India (Kaz - employee #36926) that they could not help me because I had purchased the product on Amazon.com, which was an "illegal website". I kid you not. They refused to transfer me to a supervisor. What has happened to Adobe? They used to excel at customer/technical support, and now they are terrible.

[Anne_Wi...@adobeforums.com]

After nearly 15 hours of trying every recommendation in these forums (and other websites) the solution in my case was simple.

I had stumbled across it earlier in one of the Adobe TechNotes but typically they hadn't explained it clearly (not surprising when, for example, they refer to Windows XP in a solution for Vista users!)

I have just purchased CS3 Design Standard for installation on Vista (I have been using the latter for 6 months - loads of initial problems but I still like it)

So the hours were spent removing everything to do with Adobe, Macromedia, itunes etc etc in fact anything that didn't stand still long enough. Downloading Flash Player Uninstaller and Cleanup Utility - they didn't make any difference. Dusting the brand new disk!

Copying the disk into a folder on the C drive, editing msconfig. Yawn, losing the will to live.

Even defragging and scanning for viruses.

Abusive feedback and survey to Adobe. Its the least they deserve.

I even tried to remove trial versions I hadn't even loaded in the first place. You never know ......

And all because

I wasn't logged in as Administrator but in my user name.

So thanks to John Lat (even if he does prefer MACS) and a word of advice to Adobe for their TechNote kb402048

Rather than the long winded and not very clear Solution 2

You don't need to set up a new Administrator account (unless presumably there isn't one already, I don't know if this is possible), you need to disable all the user accounts apart from the Administrator and then switch user to Administrator.

Bingo!

And good luck to any other victims who may have the same problem I had.

Anne

[Patric...@adobeforums.com]

I haven't experienced a lot of problems with CS3 on Windows -- not since I downgraded from Vista "Ultimate Kluge" edition, to XP Pro.

Vista is OK if you never do anything. It's a very pretty (albeit slow) MP3 player. I have it installed on four multiboot workstations and have decided that those Vista partitions are just wasted disk space.

I had some problems with the Encore additional content not installing. That's pretty messed-up and tells me Adobe needs to hire some street drunks to at least make it appear they have a QA department.

The activation thing is retarded, especially when Adobe's activation servers are offline a surprising amount of the time. I understand why they do it, but their implementation needs a clue.

I can't use Premeire or Photoshop at the moment because I had to reinstall (drive failure) and Adobe had their entire support department offline for an entire weekend. It won't let me activate now. I opened a case on it, but Adobe just closed it without doing anything. That's a helluva thing.

Ya know, on second thought, that's a lot of problems to experience with a suite of products I use only once in awhile, and I have to boot Windows to use it. (Sorry, Linux people, The Gimp does not cut it)

I'm using Paintshop Pro 9 for camera edits until Adobe fixes the activation thing. I had forgotten how much faster it is.

I think it's time to look at other products cuz it looks like Adobe has lost their product and customer focus.

[John...@adobeforums.com]

well i think we should understand 1 thing ...the Adobe Macromedia merge is still very premature ...there not even holding hands yet

there still like at the first kiss ;o)
& it's going to be awile before they get in bed with each other

& Microsoft just isn't helping much ..we are all aware that Microsoft
has 1 goal ...to create software & hardware ..that is just only capable of working ...installing ...i guess is a better word ;o)

then they pound your system with updates ..so maybe this is now making Adobe look bad !?...but 1 thing i know is that Adobe is trying !

its a very complex subject really

peace

[Taylor_...@adobeforums.com]

Well, good luck fixing your problem, I haven't read this entire thread, maybe you did already. Anyway, once you get it installed cs3 is a dream to work with. I absolutely love how dreamweaver and flash are now in the adobe family and working effortlessly together with photoshop and the others. I've been working on a flash site for my job and I can't get over how cool it is to have all the software I need under one name. I've gotten a chance to use flash, dreamweaver, illustrator, photoshop and others all on this one project.

CS3 certainly does not stink once you get it installed. I'm still a loyal Adobe fanboy. Where would graphic designers be without them.

[John...@adobeforums.com]

Microsfot just updated my Windows PC ..with 4 updates regarding
system performmance & hardware performance

so hopefully this will resolve some performance issues with CS3

running Flash now ..i think things got abit better ..i think ! ;o)

yeah Talyor ...Dreamweaver is totally cool ..Adobe really listened to user requests & made it very nice

peace

[Lindi...@adobeforums.com]

you seem to have a lot of info on cs3 on vista.. maybe you can direct me.
a former mac user. i had to update and trying to weigh out the cost/value scenario and longevity of the platform/machine .
so i broke and ordered a hp desktop....Dual core 64 bit, 3GB with 500 ghd. with windows ultimate.
while im awaiting its arival, and the arrival for CS3 im wondering if i made the right choice...

am an artist and understand the programs well, just not the computers... did read that ultimate was the better way to go... any input, before i set up... am a graphic/web designer. thanks.