January 12, 2010
Currently, activating Adobe software has a limit on the number of deactivations that can occur. For all Adobe activating software (including Acrobat-based products), that deactivation limit is 20. Starting January 15th, the deactivation limit will no longer be enforced.
Deactivations are useful when installing the software on a new system. Adobe’s license agreements stipulate that the software can be installed on two different systems at any one time. Activation is intended to enforce this license agreement. When installing on a new system it is often necessary to remove the software from older systems. That removal is tracked by deactivating the software on the old system prior to removing it.
The deactivation limit has caused numerous problems and I’m very happy to see it go. As stated above, we should go live on the a new activation server implementation on January 15th that completely removes the deactivation limit. Although deactivation is still necessary (which causes some other problems), there should no longer be any limit to the number of deactivations.
In email discussions with a couple of readers I mentioned that this implementation may go live as late as March. I’m happy to say that we were able to certify and post it earlier.
Note that this affects software as far back as Adobe Creative Suite 3 and Acrobat 8.
Update: Per one of the comments, here’s a URL for getting help from adobe.com
Contacts at adobe.com for support.
January 8, 2010
Customers have stated very clearly that they do not want to close other applications while installing Adobe software. For some applications, we really do have to quit those processes in order to successfully install due to locks on system resources, etc. This may be acceptable with respect to closing other Adobe software; but, it isn’t acceptable when users have to close critical tools such as browsers.
We had really hoped to improve this aspect of our installers in the coming CS releases. We have made some inroads on our upcoming installers; but, there still are some limitations. Most importantly, there are two cases where we still need browsers to close before we can successfully finish installation:
(1) When installing plugins for various browsers we need those browsers to quit. This usually happens when installing a product that also installs the Flash Player. Such products include Flash Pro and any Creative Suite that includes Flash Pro in its distribution. Fireworks also deploys some browser plugins and needs browsers to quit.
(2) When installing some color settings files we need Firefox 3.0 to quit. Firefox 3.0 holds a lock on system color files while executing. We deploy versions of these same color files and cannot do so when Firefox has a lock on them. This was fixed with Firefox 3.5; however, there are still 14.5% of our user base using a version of Firefox prior to Firefox 3.5. Complicating this fact is that the process name for Firefox has no indication of version number. So we will still require Firefox to quit before installing upcoming Adobe product releases. Once more users have shifted to Firefox 3.5+ we will be able to remove this obstacle.
We have at least addressed one of the worst consequences of needing to close browsers while deploying by limiting the amount of time the browser needs to be down. With upcoming CS releases non-Adobe conflicting processes can remain open throughout most of the installation process. We cache any locked files until the very end of the install process. At that point a warning dialog is provided to the user to close conflicting processes such as browsers for the last minute or so of installing these few remaining, cached files. This will allow users to keep open their browsers for the vast majority of time consumed in deploying. Silent deployments will, of course, not have such a warning dialog and so will need the browsers to be down during the entirety of the deployment.
This all applies to future Adobe Creative Suite retail releases. CS3 and CS4 installation will not receive the changes mentioned above and will still need browsers to quit.
