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Adobe!!! Stop making Acrobat useless with out Photoshop installed!

Posted on | July 15, 2008 | 11 Comments

I already mentioned this type of lameness once! Thankfully this time it struck while I was at home with my CS3 disks.

I installed Photoshop before, so that I could launch Acrobat. I uninstalled Photoshop because on the MacBook Air, I don’t want to waste the space, and I don’t do any graphics stuff on this machine. All was well.

Until a day or so ago that is. Adobe Updater, my bestest friend ran. apparently something got flipped back to “false” or something, because now, I get my favorite dialog box again!

The only CS3 apps I have on the MBA, are Bridge (Don’t use it) and Device Central (Don’t use it). I tried Bridge, it ran, then I tried Acrobat, same error message. I tried Device Central and shocker, got the same error as Acrobat.

Why I need to have launched Photoshop first or (I assume) Fireworks, or Illustrator, just to manipulate PDFs is beyond me. Just turn off whatever functionality those impart, OFF. Tell me if I want those functions, I need to load Photoshop first. Why make the whole app close down? How does that make sense? It certainly makes for a crappy User Experience, since now I have to break out my 9 DVD collection, install photoshop, load it, close it, make sure Acrobat is pleased, then uninstall. WHACK!!!!

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11 Responses to “Adobe!!! Stop making Acrobat useless with out Photoshop installed!”

  1. John Dowdell
    July 15th, 2008 @ 12:00 am

    You can download the free Reader too, for your smaller computer.

    To activate your Creative Suite 3 on a second machine, there do indeed seem to be some minimum installation requirements.

  2. John Wilker
    July 15th, 2008 @ 12:00 am

    @JD, that one isn’t Full featured right? Not Pro.

    Good to know. I’ll install Fireworks, I guess tomorrow, since I didn’t today, LOL

    Thanks for the info! Always appreciated!

  3. John Wilker
    July 15th, 2008 @ 12:00 am

    @Shan,

    Yeah that’s what I’ll try, I can probaby make use of Fireworks

    @JD

    yeah it’s licensed, I have CS3 full suite installed on my main machine, but only want to open/read/create PDFs on my MacBook Air.

    I think the fireworks route is probably my path of least resistance.

    Is there no way Acrobat can be activated on it’s own? that seems kinda weird that it requires another app for activation, no?

  4. Shan
    July 15th, 2008 @ 12:00 am

    I would guess he’s taking advantage of the license option of installing a second copy on a laptop (his MacBook Air), not to be used at the same time as the primary copy on another machine. He did mention he didn’t want to install other apps to save space.

    I recommend installing Fireworks (343MB) or Dreamweaver (366MB). You could try installing one on a USB thumb drive, and only plug it in whenever CS3 decides to randomly require activation.

  5. Shan
    July 15th, 2008 @ 12:00 am

    As far as I know, it’s because those other applications have the activation code in them, and Acrobat does not. Stupid, I agree, but I figured I’d share what’s going on there.

  6. John Dowdell
    July 15th, 2008 @ 12:00 am

    Sorry for the hassle. The technote doesn’t seem to add much additional information:
    http://www.adobe.com/go/kb400590

    But… are you saying that you have a copy of CS3, but only have Acrobat installed? If so, can you keep at least one creative tool in Creative Suite 3 installed and activated? From what I’m reading that seems to remove the problem.

    (If this is not possible, then I suspect the CS3 may have been a freebie, and perhaps downgrading the freebie request could do it. Just a hunch on my part though.)

    jd/adobe

  7. John Wilker
    January 7th, 2009 @ 2:45 am

    @JD, that one isn't Full featured right? Not Pro.

    Good to know. I'll install Fireworks, I guess tomorrow, since I didn't today, LOL

    Thanks for the info! Always appreciated!

  8. John Wilker
    January 7th, 2009 @ 2:45 am

    @Shan,

    Yeah that's what I'll try, I can probaby make use of Fireworks

    @JD

    yeah it's licensed, I have CS3 full suite installed on my main machine, but only want to open/read/create PDFs on my MacBook Air.

    I think the fireworks route is probably my path of least resistance.

    Is there no way Acrobat can be activated on it's own? that seems kinda weird that it requires another app for activation, no?

  9. Shan
    January 7th, 2009 @ 2:45 am

    I would guess he's taking advantage of the license option of installing a second copy on a laptop (his MacBook Air), not to be used at the same time as the primary copy on another machine. He did mention he didn't want to install other apps to save space.

    I recommend installing Fireworks (343MB) or Dreamweaver (366MB). You could try installing one on a USB thumb drive, and only plug it in whenever CS3 decides to randomly require activation.

  10. Shan
    January 7th, 2009 @ 2:45 am

    As far as I know, it's because those other applications have the activation code in them, and Acrobat does not. Stupid, I agree, but I figured I'd share what's going on there.

  11. John Dowdell
    January 7th, 2009 @ 2:45 am

    Sorry for the hassle. The technote doesn't seem to add much additional information:
    http://www.adobe.com/go/kb400590

    But… are you saying that you have a copy of CS3, but only have Acrobat installed? If so, can you keep at least one creative tool in Creative Suite 3 installed and activated? From what I'm reading that seems to remove the problem.

    (If this is not possible, then I suspect the CS3 may have been a freebie, and perhaps downgrading the freebie request could do it. Just a hunch on my part though.)

    jd/adobe

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