I had to move a copy of Adobe Creative Suite to a new computer for one of my clients. Everything worked fine except for Photoshop, which turns out to be Adobe's most heavily protected product. I spent three hours on the phone over a five hour period before I finally got Adobe's blessing and Photoshop re-validated. Even then, I had to leave the user with administrative rights; any lower and Photoshop demanded to be activated.

The Adobe agents were polite and there was no yelling or screaming at my end. I listened carefully; at the end I decided that the whole point of the exercise was for the agent to decide that I was not trying to rip Adobe off. I think what tipped things in my favor what my calmness, my persistence, and the absolute consistency of my story. I say "story" because from Adobe's perspective it was probably viewed as a story to be proven true or false. I certainly resented that.

Adobe software has never been friendly when it comes to upgrading computers. It's always been difficult to get the settings right on the new system. Adobe activation just makes the process all the more difficult and, worse, interferes with the proper maintenance of the system.

As much as I have detested Microsoft's moves to activation and validation, the truth is that it has not caused me a single problem to date. So yes, Adobe needs to fix this. Or maybe I'll switch to Microsoft Expression Design. Maybe a little competition will get Adobe's attention.