OT - Adobe CS2 now free, perhaps
Jabba
Posts: 1,458
I searched for an existing thread, but there didn't seem to be one - so here goes...
Now that Adobe's no longer supporting the old range, all Adobe CS2 products (with the exception of After Effects) are now available for free download with official licence keys
http://www.adobe.com/downloads/cs2_downloads/index.html
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There's a great selection of Photoshop brushes in the DAZ store that can now be used by everyone (awesome to post work renders and for general digital art)
Thread title edited by a mod to make it clear that this is not currently an officially sanctioned "free version" - see comments below.
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Comments
Actually, it isn't officially free unless there's been an update -the nearest to official word in fact is that it is there only for those who have a license for CS2 already, which they will not be able to use due to the closure of the activation servers. However, the forum post is coming up as deleted when I try to follow the links so I'm not sure what the status is now.
That's Adobe's story...and they are sticking to it...
I have read what Richard has posted. However, I have not read it direct from an official Adobe source.
So everyone can take it however they want. If it is true however that its for excisting customers, then they did it the laziest way possible.
The comment was posted by Dov Isaacs, who is/was an Adobe developer (I think on the font side, though). However, it does seem to have gone now so I agree that the situation is extremely murky. Actually, I think I should edit this thread's title to remove the "officially", sicne that doesn't appear to be true at least.
The Official Adobe statement:
"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. While this might be interpreted as Adobe giving away software for free, we did it to help our customers."
http://blogs.adobe.com/conversations/2013/01/update-on-cs2-and-acrobat-7-activation-servers.html
"...While this might be interpreted as Adobe giving away software for free, we did it to help our customers." hmmm, that can be read as many things, but certainly not an outright rebuttal of "freebie" status... maybe trying to appease customers that bought it in the past, or maybe too stubborn to admit they made a mistake? Either way, it'll surely hit their competitiors priced in the hobby-level marketplace.
Ah. I get it. It's for doing an end run around the licensing system if the customer wants to keep using an old version they already have without having to phone tech support to get it reactivated when they port it onto a different machine without having deactivated it on the old one. (Because the old one died unexpectedly and they didn't have the chance.) i.e., You can go on using it, but they aren't going to give you any extra help on it.
Adobe lets you run a program on two computers. But they don't limit you to any number of different versions of a given program that you've got on one. And I probably wasn't the only holdout on transitioning to a suite. And, for all I know, there may be some old plugins that will run on CS2 that won't on later versions.
Sounds like what happened to the activation server...and they decided it wasn't worth the time/effort to replace it.
Possibly. Although I doubt that server was *only* dealing with activation codes for CS2.
No you weren't. I never upgraded Photoshop past version 7 and Illustrator past version 10. I liked what I had and never saw a reason to so, so never did.
I agree. I think the better approach would've been to email all registered owners and send them to a "private" link, and not one that is public enough for anyone to see. A password protected page would've kept the general public away from those downloads.
Oh and Richard, the download page on Adobe's site is still up there in plain sight.
*Sigh* There were plugins that worked in Photoshop 7 that died in OS X and were never upgraded. I miss a few of them still.
Well, I finally transitioned to a suite when I enrolled at a local Junior College and was able to make the change at the academic price. If you're running more than 2 professional level Adobe programs, a suite is probably less of a hassle for upgrades. The Cloud paradigm is worth it if you're running a business or in a position to write the monthly subscription off as a business expense. I'm just not yet convinced that it would be worth the monthly subscription rate as a private party.
It WAS password protected...then Thursday (I think that's what the Ars Technica article said) they made it public...
Well, I finally transitioned to a suite when I enrolled at a local Junior College and was able to make the change at the academic price. If you're running more than 2 professional level Adobe programs, a suite is probably less of a hassle for upgrades. The Cloud paradigm is worth it if you're running a business or in a position to write the monthly subscription off as a business expense. I'm just not yet convinced that it would be worth the monthly subscription rate as a private party.
There's always The GIMP...
I agree. I think the better approach would've been to email all registered owners and send them to a "private" link, and not one that is public enough for anyone to see. A password protected page would've kept the general public away from those downloads.
Oh and Richard, the download page on Adobe's site is still up there in plain sight.
Yeah the download page is still up, but the Adobe forum thread where it was being discussed is the one that is now apparently gone.
I'm not understanding everything you are saying, no,
but only by entering the serial beside the software will work?
I will not be classified as not pirate?
ps: I do not have any adobe product purchased
I accessed the page to donwload indicated at the beginning of this topic, I have interest in photoshop cs2, and I'm downloading it now ...
Well, since you are downloading it from Adobe's own site, NOT a pirated version from an unauthorized site. I can't see that they'd have a leg to stand on for making trouble for anyone who downloaded it, even if they suddenly changed their mind. They might summarily deactivate all copies of CS2 anything later on. But they'd hardly go after people who took advantage of their own offer from their own site.
hmm ... So I'm left wondering if the serial will still work.
Probably, for now. If it suddenly stops working, or you get a deactivation alert when you try to launch the program, you can try to reactivate, but Adobe may just have pulled the plug from their end.
Probably won't happen for a while. But it may eventually. But then, free is free.
I don't know how it stacks up on the Windows side. but CS2 will only run on Snow Leopard or earlier on the Mac side. That's OS X.6. Current Mac system version is OS X.8. The last Macs to ship with OS X.6 came out in June/July 2011. That's coming up to a year and a half ago, so there will still be Macs which can run CS2 in service for a while, although a lot of people have upgraded their systems to get access to some of the new features in the later versions. CS2 may be old, but it's not to the end of its lifespan yet. However it's four versions behind the curve in Adobe's development cycle and I don't think they want to put much manpower into supporting it.
They may pick up a few new users by letting people use CS2 for as long as it will still run. It's too old to be used for an upgrade path, but there are dealers who sell close-out software so people who are used to having it may try to get a newer version if they can, once it finally does fail, or they upgrade to hardware that won't run it.
Ummm...how?
This version has the activation routines disabled and a 'general' serial number has been issued. That's in addition to the hardcoded activation server no longer existing at that or any IP address...they'd have an easier time stopping the sun from rising.
It's already out of support...what are they going to do, threaten not to issue an update? They haven't done one of those for this version for quite a while, already...
At this point, they may as well just say, "Yeah, get it now...we screwed up, our loss is your gain."
Right. And like I say, the clock is ticking. It's too old to qualify for an upgrade, so if people who get to depend on it want to go on using Adobe software after this gets outgrown by their hardware they will need to actually buy a commercial copy.
You can get the current versions of Adobe software for about a third the price if you qualify for the academic versions. Those are no longer crippleware. They are the full versions, and they upgrade to the full versions (for the standard upgrade price). All you need is to be able to prove you're enrolled in a qualifying school (pretty much any acredited school -- mine is the local Jr College) and you only need to be signed up for one class to do that. *Any* class. Even just an exercise class.
does anyone know if this version runs on windows 7 64bit ?
It runs fine on my Win 7 Home Premium 64 bit. I registered the product through the program, and got a nice email thanking me for registering my copy of CS2, so I don;t think there will be any problems with it.
Which files did you download Jimmy, Creative Suite of just CS2?
Excellent! Thanks for the tip
Oh lord! I started with a full paid version of Photoshop 6 and have done updates through 7, cs2, and cs5 what does that mean for me? Will my CS5 upgrade still work when I have to reinstall?
And what's this about Adobe sending license codes to previous owners. I got nothing from them. :(
I'd worried that when the time came that Adobe wouldn't be ready. So, what happened? Their license server died? Just what does that tell you about how organized they are? I could understand if it was some piddly little company like DAZ but Adobe is supposed to be a global big-boy player.
Backup, backup your backups, back them up too, and keep a paper copy just in case! 8-o
I downloaded only Photoshop CS2 (not worth it to me to install the whole suite just in case there are some extras in it for PS). Installs and works fine on my Win7-64bit.
I paid for a full version of ImageReady when it first came out. Was able to upgrade to PS 5 from there then upgrade to PS 7 after which I stopped.
I installed PS7 just a year ago on my new machine. No problems. I just can't lose my original PS5 CD which I need to install PS7. If that happens I'd be stuck. Now I have CS2 (thank you Adobe) so I'm not worried for at least a while.
Of course your CS5 upgrade will work.
...so I could actually have a legit working version of CS2 for no Zlotys down no Zlotys to pay at 0% interest?
I paid for a full version of ImageReady when it first came out. Was able to upgrade to PS 5 from there then upgrade to PS 7 after which I stopped.
I installed PS7 just a year ago on my new machine. No problems. I just can't lose my original PS5 CD which I need to install PS7. If that happens I'd be stuck. Now I have CS2 (thank you Adobe) so I'm not worried for at least a while.
Of course your CS5 upgrade will work.
Hmmm... I've got a couple of Adobe products that already give me trouble everytime I go to re-install them. I end up having to call their help desk to issue a new key manually. I can't remember which products but it pisses me off every time and I always worry that they'll say "sorry" sometime.
Edited to add: Just looked my records and the two products are Dreamweaver4 which I have to install the downloaded trial and then call for a key. The other product is AfterEffects5.5 for which I have to call for them to manually activate everytime I want to install it because the key on the box doesn't work with their key server anymore. Been doing that for years.
I downloaded the Creative Suite CS2. I haven't done much with it yet, but it seems to work OK. I just bought PSE11 a couple of months ago, and I am well pleased with it too.
Not exactly correct. When I was in college, I wanted to get the academic version and they told me that my school had to be on their special llist of approved schools.
Also seems to work only for schools in the US. If you teach elsewhere, in another non-approved school, or overseas, sorry, no academic version for you. I asked 2 years ago and that was their answer.
hence why I never bought it. :(