I had no idea that getting Adobe Photoshop CS2 to work on Windows Vista Home Premium was difficult. As a matter of fact, as someone who has been using Photoshop for many years I assumed it would be easy. Silly me. Following is my account of dealing with Adobe Support to try and get my legal copy of Adobe Photoshop CS2 to work on my new machine, which coincidentally came with Vista Home Premium. Note that the issues I experienced had nothing to do with Photoshop functionality, the only problem I had was getting the software to accept my serial number.

The Back Story

I’ll start by describing my situation. It wasn’t one that I initially thought was odd, but Adobe’s support personnel have had one hell of a time wrapping their mind around it so I can only assume that my situation is mind (and possibly time, space and physics) bending.

1. I have owned and used Photoshop CS2 since 2005
2. I recently purchased a new computer from Dell, it came with Windows Vista Home Premium (so I decided to try the much maligned OS)
3. I wanted to install, register and activate my copy of Photoshop CS2 on my new computer

The Assets

Now that you have a little back story, I’d like to tell you how I’m set up just to be sure there’s no misunderstanding (again, Adobe support couldn’t fathom this setup).

1. My new computer is a hardware monster, it dwarfs the minimum requirements for Photoshop CS2 from a hardware standpoint
2. I still have the original download of Photoshop CS2 that I got from Adobe on a CD (I thought it was pretty standard to back up purchased and downloaded software, apparently it isn’t)

The Problem: Part 1

Now for the fun. While I was installing Photoshop it asked me for a serial number. Like a good customer and someone who writes software for a living I don’t keep a copy of the serial number along with the software install. Instead, I depend on Adobe to keep up with that for me. So during the pause in the installation I headed out to Adobe’s site and logged into my account to take a look at my serial number. When I got to the appropriate page, however, the site informed me that the registration services were not available.

“No problem” I thought, and continued to click the “Trial” button to go ahead and install Photoshop CS2 so I could use it for the task I needed and activate / register it later once the registration services were back online. Logic has been the downfall of many…

The Problem: Part 2 - The Problem Grows

I finished my task with no problems, saved my graphics files and continued on about my way comfortable in the knowledge that soon Adobe would be back online and everything would be tidied up.

So the next day before I head out for the day I check on the registration services site again only to find that it’s still down. I figured what the heck, I’ll call their support center. The conversation with the support personnel was pretty short… as she informed me that she couldn’t help me because the registration service was down.

“Well that’s less than ideal, but whatever…” I thought as I headed out the door.

Online Support

At some point during my day that day I had a thought, “I might as well submit an online ticket so the nice support folks can get to my problem as soon as the flaky registration service comes back online.” So as soon as I got home I sat down and submitted a support ticket using Adobe’s site.

Two days later (on Monday, which is fine, they don’t work weekends) I got an e-mail with a PDF attachment… apparently this is how Adobe’s support communicates… via an e-mail with a PDF attachment. What a clever way to try and force people to use Adobe Reader. Anyhow, the gist of the message was that they would be unable to help me because it was a weekend (note that this was sent on Monday). However, the message continues on to tell me that my Photoshop CS2 serial number will not work with Photoshop CS3. They then continue to assure me that they were happy to have solved this issue for me.

Of course, CS3 had nothing whatsoever to do with my problem, so I responded. Admittedly it took me until the next Saturday to do so (after all, the trial was working, getting it activated wasn’t my top priority). I was pretty straightforward but polite in my response that CS3 was nowhere to be found. I even used Photoshop CS2 to make the image below and attach it to the support ticket. You see, the only problem I had is that I couldn’t enter my serial number… nothing else was wrong!

On Sunday (the next day, at least these guys are prompt) I got a message informing me that it was the weekend. This time, however, I was instructed to call Adobe’s support telephone number instead of bothering the online support folks, they said the phone support personnel would be better qualified to handle my unique issue.

Telephone Support

So on Sunday I went ahead and called the Adobe support folks again. I got a nice individual on the phone who seemed genuinely eager to help me solve this issue of epic proportions.

Of course, all he could tell me was that Photoshop CS2 does not work on Vista, I need to upgrade to Photoshop CS3. After me spending 20 minutes trying to convince him not only did it work, but I used it to make the attachment on the ticket, my support tech was ready to get rid of me. He told me to call back some other time, when the technical support folks would be around. I had to wonder who exactly I had been talking to all this time if not technical support.

Going Rogue

The time had come for me to put some of my own time into solving this problem. In all honesty, it wasn’t that hard to solve once I put my mind to it. I had originally hoped for a quick fix from Adobe but once it was obvious they were not going to be of help… and that my trial would run out… I had to figure out how to make things work on my own.

I researched the problem on the web and found some vague references to it, but nothing that out and out told you how to fix it. Thus this article…

There seem to be several approaches to fixing the problem that people have found over time. However, I found what worked for me and it goes a little something like this:

1. Uninstall Photoshop completely
2. Disable Vista’s UAC functionality
3. Re-install Photoshop CS2 in Windows XP SP2 compatibility mode
4. Enter your serial number during the initial installation
5. Run Photoshop CS2 in Windows XP SP2 compatibility mode

I will add a more detailed post at some point in the future which outlines each of the steps in detail, possibly with screen shots if I find the time (now that my copy of Photoshop isn’t going to expire).

Note that I was never able to get the “Activation” popup in Photoshop to work, it would always give me the error listed in the picture above. However, the first time I used my serial during installation using the steps I just outlined everything seemed to work great.

The Conclusion

Adobe Photoshop CS2 does, in fact, work on Windows Vista Home Premium if you’re willing to toy with it. Of course, having to toy with it is the reason I don’t use Photoshop’s competitors.

I stumbled across an article hosted on Slate today written by Jacob Weisberg. The article, entitled “Where Have All the Flower Children Gone?” does a really good job of outlining some of the reasons we’re not seeing as many anti-war protests lauding our presence in Iraq in comparison to the many protests that were seen during the Vietnam era.

In a time where the war in Iraq is often compared in many ways to the war in Vietnam I thought it was nice to see some fairly objective observations as to the differences between then and now in both the wars and our personality as a society. Enjoy!

This article actually started about three years ago, when a coworker and I were discussing the move by the French government to outlaw the word “e-mail.” At the time, in 2003, I found it very odd that a government would be taking such drastic measures against a seemingly low payoff end (there’s no way to enforce it and people are going to call it what they call it, regardless of what they should call it). During our very casual lunch conversation, I mentioned how odd I found this and a discussion began that intrigued me even more than the French government’s seemingly misplaced energy.

As it turns out, this coworker’s father was a very, very high ranking official in the U.S. military (yes, I verified it). As part of his responsibilities he maintained contact with officials from all European countries, including France. Not long before our discussion my coworker’s father had been discussing with his son the sad shape the French government was getting itself into.

According to him, France was losing all cultural identity. The constant concessions shown to special interest and minority groups had begun to give those groups powers which far outweighed their position within the society. In turn, the majority of the society was bearing the brunt of the loss of their power. The minority and special interest groups were holding much more sway than would normally rightfully be theirs.

After our discussion, my coworker revisted the issue with his father and mentioned our discussion. His father’s take on the issue was… again… interesting.
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Who is Ray Beckerman? He’s a lawyer attempting to defend people against the blanket, John Doe style lawsuits the RIAA is perpetrating all over the place. I’ve only kept up with this information in a general sense (compared to some others I know) but haven’t seen any information on the lawsuit side as detailed as what he provided in an interview he did with DefectiveByDesign.org.

Probably about 10 minutes of reading that will enlighten you to some pretty interesting stuff:

http://www.defectivebydesign.org/node/404

In what can only be described as unsurprising the U.S. Government has released a document which outlines a new relationship with the Russian government that will rule how the two interact based on intellectual property.

I didn’t provide a link, because the one I found was a PDF. Check here if you would like to read it.

I’ll summarize as best I can without causing an unnecessary loss in interest to those who are barely hanging on anyway, but nothing beats reading the original for yourself if you are someone who is interested.

The gist of the document is that Russia has agreed to begin to more aggressively chase down and penalize the people who would allow others to gain what the U.S. government would consider “intellectual property.” The most interesting thing about the document, of course, is that on page two, the first bullet point specifically names allofmp3.com as a target. Among other interesting, valid and needed points it seems questionable that allofmp3.com would be specifically targeted. Anyone who has ever been to Russian can tell you about the rampant illegal CD sales that go on, surely there were factories making these illegal CD’s which could be named as well? Instead, those points are glossed over and vague enough to actually allow continued violations while allofmp3.com takes the brunt of a direct reference, assuring that they will be specifically targeted and made an example of.

While I would be hesitant to say that the negotiations are in direct response to RIAA’s repeated demands even in the face of Allofmp3’s repeated justification it is hard to ignore the constant crowing the RIAA does about the site. Why would the U.S. government have any interest in specifically naming allofmp3.com as an enemy unless it is because of the constant complaints from the RIAA?

Now don’t get me wrong. While I like the idea behind allofmp3 much better than the blatant ripoff (I’ll write an article about that soon enough) that is our DRM overlords, I think the idea has been taken to an extreme and as such doesn’t compensate artists properly (or at all, actually). As such, it isn’t an acceptable solution to everyone and some changes should be in order.

I guess this is just another case, building on the suing of minors and people who don’t even own computers, which points out the complete and utter failure which is the RIAA. At some point artists are going to realize that they can make much, much more money by selling the bandwidth to download their songs rather than paying the RIAA and its minions to market the songs for them. I, for one, will be glad when the money I spend on music goes directly to the artist who created it instead of the executives who greedily mark up the prices to distribute the music.

Do the math… the DRM controlled music you buy is a ripoff.

Today I came across an article on CNN where Kofi Annan presented a proposal to the U.N. Climate Change Conference that indicates a possible solution to global warming is to create more polution in the air, thereby creating a sort of “shade” around the planet which would filter the sun’s rays.

I’ve seen the idea referred to as the “global haze proposal.”

To be sure the article doesn’t escape (CNN has a habit of moving their articles after a while) I’ll include the full, quoted text here:

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A project I work on requires that we developers edit stored procedures and store the resulting script in a text file that we put in our source control tool. In our case, we use Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio to do the aforementioned editing and we use CA’s Harvest Change Manager as the corporate mandated code repository and source control tool.

Now if you were using another tool, Notepad or Query Analalyzer, for instance, you probably wouldn’t have the problem I’m going to outline. As a matter of fact, the problem I’m going to outline is probably pretty rare. But it exists and I found a solution, so I’m going to write about it.

As it turns out, whenever you “Save As” in Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio the default encoding for the file is Unicode - Codepage 1200. Yes, this is a new approach to saving your beloved stored procedures and no, it wasn’t done that way in the past. Further, I can’t find any notification that the “standard default” was going to be changing.

Anyway, Harvest doesn’t like Unicode files. So when you go to add the file to your Harvest project it won’t let you. Oh, the humanity! ANSI for everyone!

Now I may be in the minority here, but I originally failed to notice that on the “Save File As” dialog there is a small arrow on the right side of the [Save] button. Once I noticed it, I clicked it… Then I clicked “Save with encoding…” Now I’m happy again! Kind of…

The good thing is that this will let you save your file in whatever encoding you want. The caveat is that it will let you save your file in whatever encoding you want.

So how is the default set? I’ll leave that for another article… Mostly because I don’t know yet.

Update (04.11.2008): Thanks to Chris May for the following step by step instructions on how to overcome this issue (edited for formatting, the original version is comment #8):

I have found some information about this.

Though it is possible at the time a script is saved to change the encoding to ascii it is tedious. Here is the process.

1. Choose File\Save
2. Choose the name and folder to save the file then look really closely at the right edge of the “Save” button for a tiny arrow
3. Click that tiny Arrow and choose “Save with Encoding”
4. From the Drop list select the encoding you want (the default encoding is “Unicode - Codepage 1200″, which means “UTF-16″). I have been using “US-ASCII - Codepage 20127″
5. Hit OK and Save. Your files should now work just fine with Perforce, CVS, etc.

Additionally, Chris has voiced his feedback to the SQL team, I encourage everyone to go have a look and hopefully we can get a solution sooner rather than later… although the outlook is bleak.

So not too long ago I came across this article on the New York Times’ site. It started off as an interesting read and eventually evolved into what I would consider borderline panic that the world was about to end. OK, so I knew the world wasn’t going to end, but still… Go read the article. I’ll wait here with my opinions on hold until you’re done.

…

So now that you’ve read it you’ll agree that: A) Anyone with enough nerdness to reconstruct a virus extracted from DNA has seen many, if not all, science fiction movies and; B) They didn’t learn a thing from these movies.

So how, on Earth, does someone consider it progressive science to reintroduce viruses, possibly some which culled the population to nearly nothing, into society? With our immune system dependencies on medicine do we really think it’s a good idea to just start introducing old viruses all willy nilly?

I mean… Aren’t there enough new viruses for you guys to work on?

Recently I came across a blogger’s post of a painting meant to depict, from the blogger’s comments, a World of Warcraft player in 30 years. The original post was really nothing more than a link to a painting and some very brief, seemingly tongue in cheek commentary.

The most interesting thing about the post, however, is that once it hit Digg comments began to flood in. The comments, mostly anonymous, formed up to draw a distinct line between people who played World of Warcraft and people who didn’t. After reading through these comments you almost felt as if you had been involved in a debate between two opposing factions.

Now obviously, the artist who created this painting wanted it to stir emotions and intended for discussion to be prompted surrounding their work. However, it strikes me as odd that there have been such lines drawn around World of Warcraft and, more broadly, around the MMORPG genre of games.

Why is it that this genre is seen as the ultimate evil of gaming?

Why is it that with all of the game formats available to be criticized, all carrying their own group of addicts, the MMORPG is seen as the one genre which is the monster?

More importantly, why do so many people who are obviously not involved with the games in any way feel such a strong desire to “save” those who enjoy playing them? I mean, obviously the people who are playing the games aren’t somehow being forced to play them. By their very definition, a game is meant to be a fun event… a hobby… a break from the daily grind. So why is it that people, going about their business enjoying theire hobby, have become such a target for “saving” that those not involved in their hobby feel the need to use the strongest possible motivating factor available to them to attempt to stop these gamers from playing their games?

I figured I would offer a little editorial content here on Finalint to try and provide a little perspective on this issue. Namely my perspective…

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