CS3 & serial numbers

This is a fun one. =)

1. There is a known issue (at least I think Adobe has admitted to it) that even though you've passed the serialization as part of the installation it might not REALLY take hold until you fire off an app the first time, then a second time. The main application you want to trigger first will almost always be Photoshop if you have that installed. If you aren't installing Photoshop as part of the batch then you got me.
2. Hopefully someone can correct me if I'm wrong. If you attempt to install multiple suites of applications (Design Premium and Web Standard) that would have overlapping applications (in this case Dreamweaver) and use different serial numbers for each suite (which you would naturally) you may break the licensing for the first suite installed. In our case we've starting using a Master Collection serial number for all of our deployments so one install doesn't break another.

But as far as your serialization issue. My guess is that if you fired off an App, got prompted to enter numbers, quit it, and started it up again it then doesn't prompt. Always launch Photoshop if it's an option. And no, I don't think Adobe plans to fix this. Maybe CS4, without it's 64-bit support for Mac, will have some things fixed in it since they didn't bother with 64-bit.

I'm hoping JAMF will be able to get their hands into CS4 early so they are well prepared for what stupidity lies ahead with it...aside from probably another sizeable space need for it.

Craig E

I'm having the exact same issue, where if I push any CS3 Suite (Master or
Design Prem) during the imaging process, the first time you launch Photoshop
it asks for the serial number. Now, I haven't tried Craig's suggestion of
quitting and restarting Photoshop again, I just normally enter the serial
number and go about my merry way.

Now, if I push the install with a user logged into the machine, it works
fine. Of course, I have a script that fires up Photoshop as the last step
of the install, so that locks in the serial number.

My guess is that because CS3 is being installed by the JAMF Helper app in
front of the login window, and that since there isn't a true user logged in,
the script I use can't fire up Photoshop and hence it doesn't 'lock in' the
serial number. To be honest, I haven't toyed with this at all to find a
solution, only because I've been too busy lately. Maybe tomorrow I'll delve
into it a bit.

Oh, and if you aren't loading Photoshop you are most likely loading Bridge.
Fire up Bridge and it should serialize for you.

Steve

I've toyed with the idea of somehow adding scripts that would run at FirstRun after the Adobe install that would install a pack to enable an autologon package, reboot, the account logs in and then fires up Photoshop, quits, then disables autologon, and then logs out. Fun choreography...

Sounds fun, but just haven't had the time to deal with it, and frankly I wasn't sure it was worth it as long as the support folks and faculty that consistently used it knew to tell people that would happen.

Like many of the expensive software we all buy, you'd expect something so trivial to not be the issue and just work, or at least get fixed.

Craig

Thanks a ton for all the observations and workarounds! A lot of interesting
ideas... hopefully Adobe fixes this.