If you are looking to use the state of the art digital editing suite from around 2005, you are now in luck! Last week Adobe shut down the activation servers for their Creative Suite 2 (CS2), but wanted customers of the older version to continue to be able to make use of the software. So they assigned a generic serial number and listed it along the download links for the files for Mac and PC. Immediately some blogs hopped on the ‘giveaway’.
Turns out it was a mistake, not an intentional ‘giveaway’. Here is the explanation:
Effective December 13, Adobe disabled the activation server for CS2 products and Acrobat 7 because of a technical glitch. These products were released over 7 years ago and do not run on many modern operating systems. But to ensure that any customers activating those old versions can continue to use their software, we issued a serial number directly to those customers.
Many companies would simply note the error, say ‘sorry’, and then lock down the download in a way that ensured only registered customers could use the site. In fact early rumors were that Adobe was going to require verification of your CS2 license to activate.
But that is not what Adobe did. In fact, they made things easier – you no longer need an Adobe ID to get to the download or to use the software, you can just download and use after entering the supplied serial number.
Oh – if you are on a Mac, you should know:
Update:The install for Mac is actually for Power PC devices, so you’ll need Mac OS X v.10.2.8–v.10.3.8 or Rosetta to get it working.
On PC it should work on just about any current system, as it specified Windows XP or 2000 and a Pentium III or 4 processor.
One important note: while you can download and run the software– and Adobe isn’t stopping anyone from doing so — they are NOT giving out full legal software licenses for CS2. It is one of those odd gray areas, so if you are very concerned with licensing, then you might want to stay away, but knowing that Adobe has actively made life easier should assuage most fears.
Head to Adobe and grab CS2 now … no clue how long it will last, but for now Adobe is making good.