No, it's running with out the firewire drive. But the Customer Service rep told me on the phone that I'll likely have to do this every time I'll connect the drive.
So....I'm starting to reconsider the use of Photoshop CS. It's a GREAT tool. But it's not worth this sort of crap.
I'll go back to 7 and lose most of the video-friendly features.

That's about the stupidest anti-piracy deterrent I've ever heard of ( dongles being a close second ). Even Windows XP gives you 30 days to get it registered again if you re-install or there are major changes ( though its only asked me after several re-installs ). Surprised there hasn't been more of a backlash.

- Ray

www.undergroundplanet.com

I would think that if you wrote to Adobe and explained to them that you’re moving to a competitors product because of their activation policy, and that you will be using this other product in your tutorials, DVD’s and VASST training when you need to do image editing, that it would give them something to think about. Do they really want the people who are respected in the industry moving to other products because of an activation policy that doesn’t deter illegal copies (because the cracks don’t need to be activated) and only drives away legal customers. Seems like something they might want to change.

Of course if you had other business relations with Adobe you might not want to approach it quite this way but I would think that, at a minimum, you should be complaining to the product manager. This sounds outrageous to me. (I use Paint Shop pro)

~jr

The registration schemes are getting ridiculously intrusive.

My suggestion on the Photoshop problem is to call back to support on Monday and ask to speak to a supervisor. I would do this for two reasons: First to make sure that your dissatisfaction gets registered with additional people, but also to make sure that you got the straight scoop. I have had quite a few phone calls with support people in the past two months where I was told something was true, when it fact it wasn't. It is hard to believe that you would really have to re-register the product every time an external drive was connected or disconnected. As you point out, there would be a HUGE stink if this were the case.

I used to think that Photoshop was all that matters. Frankly I have not upgraded from 5.5. I have been using Fireworks since I do web pages and it is part of the Macromedia Studio MX bundle. It's native format is PNG files that work great in Vegas (especially the transparency). I can read all the newer Photoshop files that are around and keep the layers separate too. So there are plenty of alternatives especially if its eventually headed to Video. I agree these activation schemes are part of what is wrong with software marketing in general. They want to push a new version at you once a year and it takes a year for all the new users to get the bugs out of it. The "real beta test". Just like when Intuit p.o'd all the Turbo Tax users about a year ago. They have got to get this activation thing figured out on their time and not ours. --In this case yours Spot.

-TomE

Random question for you Spot...I have a particular affiinty for Version 7 of Photoshop. Is there something particular about 8/CS that is useful to you that is simply not available in 7 in the context of doing video editing?

I also agree about the activation thing - it's nonsense, particularly for a professional video producer/editor who's under the gun on a weekend. This is the perfect example of what happens when registration goes wrong.

no text

I was going to update from 7 to CS at the end of this week, but I think I will hold off now. I have an external hard drive that sometimes goes 'unseen' by my computer and have to reconnect it... I'll be danged if I want to reregister every time that happens, regardless of how often or not often it happens.
Thanks SPOT
Barry

Obiviously, even though Adobe added new features for us video guys, they never tested the program in the field. :)

Glad I haven't gotten that! I might get v7 (found a copy for ~$180), but what I hate about Adobe and Photoshop is that in EVERY version they re-arrange all the icons/menus/buttons. :) Drives me nuts!

I hate to ask a really stupid question but do you suppose I'll have the same problem every time I plug in an external firewire drive to my DESKTOP? Now you almost got me anxious to go into work tomorrow as I actually haven't used Photoshop in a few days but I have plugged in an external firewire drive.

This would be an absolutely insane oversight on Adobe's part and I hope, since you have the clout Spot, that they (Adobe) will address this issue.

Thanks for the heads up.

Well I just tried switching several drives in and out and Photoshop CS works fine for me. It will nag like Windows XP if you reinstall Windows and then have to reinstall Photoshop and other stuff. But in a couple quick tests I didn't see it complain about "seeing" a new drive, assuming of course Photoshop is on the root drive and you switch in other drives.

Every silly activation scheme I've seen that tests hardware in some attempt foil illegal copies tests for more than one piece of hardware changing. At least that's what's suppose to happen. ;-)

Went throught the same deal when I REFORMATTED and swapped out the D:Drive(Video) from the removeable HD trays!

Everythime I restore my drive partition via Drive Image, I have to reactivate. No hardware changes whatsoever; just a disk partition restore operation.

Fortunately, I'm on a cable modem always connected to the web.

I can see where this would be a real pain for some.

*************warning-rant ahead*************

Try removing a network card from your PC, then rebooting Windoze XP. That single act will guarantee that you need to re-register XP. Ultimately, the USA is gonna grind to a stop with heavy-handed bureacratic BS. Who worries about domestic terrorism? Hacking is the worst kind. The only effect is to make the rest of us suffer interminably at the hands of rulemakers who think they can legislate morality...end of rant no. 54.

Just for goofs, I reformatted an 80 gig external pocket drive and connected it to the system. No issues when I rebooted and started Photoshop. So then I installed it while Photoshop was open. No problem. Then I rebooted the system after storing photos on that drive. It took longer than normal to load PSCS, but no message. My assumption is that Photoshop sees the new drive with images on it, but it may be giving me a 30 day grace period just as the customer service rep told me. I won't be able to tell anything for a month if that's the case. I will be having a chat with the folks at Adobe, but unless many folks are complaining.....
CS is REALLY great and very helpful in prepping images for vid, great for building out title and lower thirds, has a lot of video-related functions plus the droplets, etc. I love it. But this is over the line. I understand and support the need to avoid piracy. Adobe says that piracy costs them over 3 million $$ a year. I remember how upset folks got over the 'new' SOFO/Sony' registration schemes too, but it's no where near as obtrusive as this. I wouldn't mind having to insert the original disc every now and then, etc. But having it fail in the middle of a flight isn't acceptable.

I don't think Photoshop 7 is any less powerful than CS in regards to video. Granted it lacks some of the previewing options (square/rectangular pixels) but one can create NLE dimension friendly templates for all new documents created for video bound graphics. Definitly not worth the upgrade and HASSLE that CS creates- especially if the reason for upgrading is for video related functions- just my opinion.

Agreed! PS7 is no less effective than CS. That's why i'm staying with version 7. A CS upgrade would be more effective if you're running other Adobe apps like Premiere, After Effects or Encore. You'd appreciate its seamless integration with those other apps especially Encore and Premiere.
BTW, I usually transfer files in and out firewire drives if I have to work on them. I have 3 hard drives in my current system all split partitioned into boot, storage, audio, video, sample library and recovery drives. I never leave the firewire drive on when working on something. I just use exclusively for backup or storage.

depends which version of xp you have i suppose .. i have never had to re-reg and have replaced everything in my main system except the motherboard and powersupply at one time or another (including the boot drive - which was cloned to a larger drive)

it is a IBM OEM lic

Wow!! With my recent crash and rebuilding I have not opened CS. I just added a new hard drive to replace the one that was getting the errors I mentioned. And I just today got done putting in the SP1a and the other hotfixes. Well - let me open up CS now and see what happens....

Son of a ***** - same thing Spot! I did not even think of this. I have in front of me an activation screen. Windows did not ask me to reactivate, although I had to re-enter my key when I did the repair. I reckon this is the wave of the future. (Vegas 5 demo issues come to mind - "Your trial has expired" could have been "Hardware changes detected. Please reactivate" in my eyes) SP2 for XP is around the corner - with new activation schemes from what I am hearing.

Umtil you have tried it, you really cannot say that 7 is same effectiveness.
But I do a lot of retouching of photos before use for video.
Especially things where someone's shirt is orange with an orange background. Or when you have people next to each other with conflicting colors. DRIVES ME NUTS. Photoshop CS you can use the color replacement brush and not have to worry about crossing borders on the shirt/object. It automatically sniffs the edges of the object you are changing the color of.
What about the new lens blur tool THAT ROCKS.
Then again not all of you are probably as concerned about things like that as I am. - Acts7

" I would think that if you wrote to Adobe and explained to them that you’re moving to a competitors product because of their activation policy, and that you will be using this other product in your tutorials, DVD’s and VASST training when you need to do image editing, that it would give them something to think about".

Trust me, Adobe does not care. The bottom line is what counts to them ... not customer dissatisfaction or a few customer losses. This has been a raging debate on Adobe forums but most people went ahead and bought it anyway (me included). Activation has been discussed so frequently that the forum moderator has forbidden any further discussion of it.

I have had to reactivate several times but, in fairness to Adobe, it was always painless and automatic. Even System Restore causes a reactivation ...

Jake

sour grapes?
the 16 bit processing, plus the highlight/shadow/midtones adjust makes this upgrade worth the cost of admission, alone. no more color banding problems. Not to mention the levels and curves adjustment layers.