Photoshop CS on CD

RDW · Oct 8, 2021

jnantz said:
you won't expect them to rewrite software to work for an obsolete operating system but you expect them to maintain a suite of software for obsolete operating systems and train people for the 1:500K people just in case .. just because people
( maybe people like you ? ) don't want to subscribe for the current software?

judging from your complaints its obvious you aren't adobe's target audience . ... like someone who expects
customer service and help without slander and insults from customer service isn't the target audience for affinity ... LOL
..
im glad you had the opportunity to move on to affinity I hope it works well for you.

I don't expect any meaningful support for old software on obsolete or current operating systems, and I don't expect anyone to be trained to do anything. But I would expect a decent company to honour its 'perpetual' licences. This would be a trivial task. For CS2 and CS3, it would only have required leaving in place the pages they had already created to offer the activation-free versions, rather than deleting them. For subsequent versions, it would only involve putting in place the same system they had for CS3, a web page that accepted installation keys and returned installers, if they couldn't be bothered to maintain the activation servers. No 'maintenance' would be required beyond this, and I would be extremely surprised if activation-free versions of all builds of CS did not already exist internally at Adobe.

Oddly enough, I still use Photoshop and Illustrator, currently CS6, as well as Affinity to keep my options open. CS is excellent software I'd prefer not to give up. But I don't really require anything beyond what is offered in CS6. In fact, there's very little (and nothing essential) I use that wasn't already in CS3. Which is fortunate, because I happen to be one of the lucky few who converted my copy of CS3 into an activation-free version when the offer was (briefly) open. CS3 users who didn't come across this (hardly obvious) page at the time weren't so fortunate. Because of what happened to CS4, I don't expect to see activation-free versions of CS5 & 6, so CS3 may well be the latest version of CS it's possible to install in a couple of years (not counting hacked versions).

removed account4 · Oct 8, 2021

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

RDW · Oct 8, 2021

Mainecoonmaniac said:
No CD required.

https://www.techspot.com/downloads/3689-adobe-photoshop-cs2.html

If you need CS2 (and have something it will run on), there's a mirror of the original Adobe page with the activation-free installers here:
http://web.archive.org/web/20140921.../creative-suite/kb/cs2-product-downloads.html

Oren Grad · Oct 8, 2021

RDW said:
All versions of CS for Windows require online activation. You can't install from the CDs without this. Unfortunately, Adobe do not support activation for versions earlier than CS5 (but see below). At some point in the not too distant future, they will also presumably switch off the servers for CS5 and CS6, making it impossible to install them without some hack.

The CS6 license activation server was already down last summer (2020) when I moved to a new PC and tried to reinstall my copy of CS6. I didn't lose any sleep over it - by that point I was ready to give up on Photoshop, had no interest in subscribing to CC.

RDW · Oct 8, 2021

Oren Grad said:
The CS6 license activation server was already down last summer (2020) when I moved to a new PC and tried to reinstall my copy of CS6. I didn't lose any sleep over it - by that point I was ready to give up on Photoshop, had no interest in subscribing to CC.

Must have been temporary, as I've activated it more recently than that, and it's still officially supported for activation.

Pieter12 · Oct 8, 2021

RDW said:
Must have been temporary, as I've activated it more recently than that, and it's still officially supported for activation.

Unfortunately, the CS6 files are no longer available for download. I have the serial number, but no software. I lost it somehow in transition.

RDW · Oct 9, 2021

Pieter12 said:
Unfortunately, the CS6 files are no longer available for download. I have the serial number, but no software. I lost it somehow in transition.

Have you tried registering your serial number with an Adobe account, and then seeing if the download becomes available?:
https://helpx.adobe.com/download-install/kb/downloaded-older-app.html

RalphLambrecht · Oct 10, 2021

cliveh said:
Does anyone know where I can buy or borrow a Photoshop CS on CD for windows, with serial number to activate it's full editing software? I don't need the latest version and CS would do.

I still have a DS version 5 on CD for sale with serial #, But unfortunately it's a Mac version.

RalphLambrecht · Oct 13, 2021

RDW said:
I don't expect any meaningful support for old software on obsolete or current operating systems, and I don't expect anyone to be trained to do anything. But I would expect a decent company to honour its 'perpetual' licences. This would be a trivial task. For CS2 and CS3, it would only have required leaving in place the pages they had already created to offer the activation-free versions, rather than deleting them. For subsequent versions, it would only involve putting in place the same system they had for CS3, a web page that accepted installation keys and returned installers, if they couldn't be bothered to maintain the activation servers. No 'maintenance' would be required beyond this, and I would be extremely surprised if activation-free versions of all builds of CS did not already exist internally at Adobe.

Oddly enough, I still use Photoshop and Illustrator, currently CS6, as well as Affinity to keep my options open. CS is excellent software I'd prefer not to give up. But I don't really require anything beyond what is offered in CS6. In fact, there's very little (and nothing essential) I use that wasn't already in CS3. Which is fortunate, because I happen to be one of the lucky few who converted my copy of CS3 into an activation-free version when the offer was (briefly) open. CS3 users who didn't come across this (hardly obvious) page at the time weren't so fortunate. Because of what happened to CS4, I don't expect to see activation-free versions of CS5 & 6, so CS3 may well be the latest version of CS it's possible to install in a couple of years (not counting hacked versions).

I' feel confirmed that the subscription model is The best choice. I would be severely hindered in my work without it. Don't care if it makes Adobe rich;I need the software to work!

grat · Oct 13, 2021

RalphLambrecht said:
I' feel confirmed that the subscription model is The best choice. I would be severely hindered in my work without it. Don't care if it makes Adobe rich;I need the software to work!

So, purely hypothetically speaking, if Adobe for some reason has a catastrophic day on the stock market, the company goes bust and sells off it's intellectual property to survive, and the license servers shut down...

How screwed are you?

I admit-- It's highly unlikely. Adobe is a large company providing an industry standard suite of tools. It would have to be a large competitor that wants to use Adobe's technology on their own product, and would almost certainly keep the lights on for current Adobe customers (although in the past 3 decades I've seen crazier things happen in the IT world-- CentOS 8 being a recent example).

But your workflow appears to be totally dependent on the subscriber edition(s) of Adobe products-- which is entirely dependent on the company itself continuing to support you.

Pieter12 · Oct 13, 2021

And an asteroid could hit the Earth. Or massive electromagnetic disturbance from solar flares. If Adobe tanks, there will be more to be concerned about than my being able to use Photoshop or there res of the CS.

MattKing · Oct 13, 2021

grat said:
So, purely hypothetically speaking, if Adobe for some reason has a catastrophic day on the stock market, the company goes bust and sells off it's intellectual property to survive, and the license servers shut down...

How screwed are you?

That IT, along with associated customer contact lists, would probably be quite saleable, so most likely you would (relatively) soon be receiving come-on emails from the entity that bought it...
Ask anyone who has a business that used to depend on a much smaller entity for their enterprise software, until that entity went bust, what that experience is like!

shutterfinger · Oct 13, 2021

Pieter12 said:
And an asteroid could hit the Earth. Or massive electromagnetic disturbance from solar flares. If Adobe tanks, there will be more to be concerned about than my being able to use Photoshop or there res of the CS.

That 12.0 making a big section of the California coast an island in the Pacific is more likely.

Pieter12 · Oct 13, 2021

shutterfinger said:
That 12.0 making a big section of the California coast an island in the Pacific is more likely.

It wouldn't take much more than a 9 to do the job. But it will take eons for California to become an island.

grat · Oct 13, 2021

MattKing said:
That IT, along with associated customer contact lists, would probably be quite saleable, so most likely you would (relatively) soon be receiving come-on emails from the entity that bought it...

Sure. Of course, it may no longer be subscription, and you might be back to the days when an academic license (ie, cheap) for Adobe was still $100 US, and the "regular user" paid over $200.

At my job, we use an enterprise network monitoring package that someone decided to purchase 15 years ago. In the past 5 years, it's been sold twice. The most recent owners have decided to double the annual subscription cost.

A linux distribution, called CentOS (a "free" version of Red Hat Enterprise) was bought by Red Hat. Red Hat swore nothing would change. And then IBM bought them. CentOS 8 was released in Sept. 2019 with 10 years of support guaranteed. In December 2020, development on CentOS 8 was terminated, and the end-of-life was announced as Dec. 31, 2021.

It's not uncommon in the IT world-- I agree, it's unlikely. But you would have to be spectacularly blind and optimistic to assume that nothing will ever change on the Adobe subscription model.

Pieter12 · Oct 13, 2021

Adobe itself makes projects created with current CS versions of InDesign incompatable with earlier versions, forcing upgrades. That way a commercial user must subscribe to always be up to date and able to accept files from clients or subcontractors. I reall doubt Adobe gives a fat rat's ass about casual users. They do care about students and most institions have a type of subscription that allows their students to use CS for free. That way, they're hooked as it is probably the only set of graphics and retouching programs they will have mastered. And in the real world out there, Adobe is pretty much the industry standard.

RDW · Oct 14, 2021

RalphLambrecht said:
I' feel confirmed that the subscription model is The best choice. I would be severely hindered in my work without it. Don't care if it makes Adobe rich;I need the software to work!

Well, it's really the only choice now, at least for Photoshop. But I don't have a problem with Adobe selling a service that customers are prepared to pay for. Subscribers are going in to this with eyes open. What I do have a problem with is Adobe refusing to allow CS customers to install the software they paid for, a 'perpetual' licence that turns out to expire after little more than a decade. And it seems to me that Adobe want to have this both ways. On the one had, we shouldn't get upset because they are denying us access to software that is supposedly too old for serious users to bother with. On the other hand, we can't possibly expect them to put up activation-free versions on a website somewhere (like they did with CS2) in case someone downloads their valuable intellectual property.

shutterfinger · Oct 14, 2021

If you have an Adobe account it will show your products that you have registered although some may be archived and that should allow you to reinstall older versions.

Pieter12 · Oct 14, 2021

shutterfinger said:
If you have an Adobe account it will show your products that you have registered although some may be archived and that should allow you to reinstall older versions.

My Adobe account only shows the current subscription plan I have, none of the older products.

shutterfinger · Oct 14, 2021

Note CS2 nor PS 7 are shown, products I had previously registered. I don't know if a new account created today will allow one to register older products. The download button has CS5 in multiple languages.

RDW · Oct 15, 2021

shutterfinger said:
View attachment 288206
Note CS2 nor PS 7 are shown, products I had previously registered. I don't know if a new account created today will allow one to register older products. The download button has CS5 in multiple languages.

It's worth a try. I think you just have to enter your serial number and see what happens.

Photoshop CS on CD

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