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Adobe Acrobat Activation Armed Against Arrays

By Ed Foster, Section The Gripelog
Posted on Tue Mar 08, 2005 at 12:48:03 AM PDT

You can use a RAID drive array, or you can use Adobe Acrobat 7.0. But it appears that the Acrobat product activation scheme is going to try to make it hard for you to do both.

"I purchased Adobe Acrobat Pro 7 last month," a reader recently wrote. "Several times since installing the software I am prompted to reactivate the product. After three successful Internet activations, I was directed to call Adobe. The person who answered the call accused me of installing the product on several PCs. I assured him that I had not done so. After reviewing my PC configuration he told me that activation does not work on RAID disk arrays. I had to install a non-RAID drive to allow Acrobat to activate properly."

Try as he might, the reader couldn't find anyone at Adobe who would offer a better solution. "I was forwarded to tech support who determined there was no workaround for this problem," the reader wrote. "Tech support's only suggestion was to purchase a volume license disk, since it does not have the activation 'feature.' They forwarded me to sales. The sales department would sell me a volume license CD, but I would have to pay a full volume license fee even though I only want one working copy. I asked for a supervisor and, after discussing the problem, he stated that I was not the first person to have this issue. He escalated the issue to 'upper management.' Two days later I was informed there was no solution for this issue. How frustrating."

Indeed. It would also appear that the RAID array problem is one Adobe could have anticipated from its previous experience with product activation in Photoshop CS. An Adobe support page on "Troubleshooting Activation Errors for Photoshop" notes that one may be required to ...

"Reinstall Photoshop on a single hard disk.
Running Photoshop on a RAID array may cause activation problems. Although RAID levels can be configured to perform as expected with Windows installed, Photoshop activation requires a level of data integrity that the RAID software or configuration may not deliver. If you installed Photoshop on a RAID array and Photoshop returns activation errors, reinstall and activate Photoshop on a single hard disk, on which Windows is installed, that is separate from the disk array."

The reader finally demanded a refund for what he'd paid for Acrobat 7, and Adobe told him he should have it ... after 60 days of processing. But it still bothers him that he would be treated like a thief because of the storage technology he uses. "My frustration with the whole process was with their confidence that their activation process is such that the 'Activation Center' assumes the software is being installed on several machines," he wrote. "I believe Adobe should do the following: 1. Place a note or warning on the order page concerning using RAID with their products. If such existed I would not have purchased the product. 2. Inform the Activation Center staff that they should ask if the product is installed on a RAID drive set and, if so, not ACCUSE the caller of multiple installations of the product. 3. Provide a workaround for users such as myself. More and more motherboards have embedded RAID controllers, so this activation issue is not going to go away. I am very disappointed that the only workaround Adobe can currently offer is to install on a non-RAID hard drive."

< Serious EULA Protection | Why You Should Stop Before You Click >

Adobe Acrobat Activation Armed Against Arrays | 161 comments (161 topical) | Post A Comment

Makes you wonder[ Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#1)
by Anonymous User on Tue Mar 08, 2005 at 06:17:54 AM PDT

If the Acrobat Pro 7 on the the various P2P sites suffers from activation... Good work Adobe, add to the problem and keep driving users to using illegal copies. Why the hell should the activation even care about a RAID array?

[ Reply to This ]

refdv [ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#173)
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[ Parent | Reply to This ]

Favorite part...[ Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#2)
by delfuego on Tue Mar 08, 2005 at 07:43:37 AM PDT

My favorite part of the quote from the Adobe website:

Photoshop activation requires a level of data integrity that the RAID software or configuration may not deliver.

RAID delivers less data integrity than a normal hard disk setup? How quaint a notion!

[ Reply to This ]

You've got it backwards[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#3)
by sconeu on Tue Mar 08, 2005 at 08:36:16 AM PDT

Activation requires *LESS* data integrity. :)

On a more serious note, has anyone investigated the "activation" that Adobe is using? Perhaps it's doing something odd at the physical level (kind of like what Intuit did), and RAID messed it up?

--
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the United States of America.
[ Parent | Reply to This ]

You've got it backwards[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#4)
by Anonymous User on Tue Mar 08, 2005 at 11:38:32 AM PDT

I'll guess that the reader is using software-based RAID under Windows, which could allow a program to still access the underlying disks in the array. If he's using a hardware-based RAID (on the controller itself) there's no way an application could distinguish the RAID array from an actual disk drive.

[ Parent | Reply to This ]

Activation schemes[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#5)
by Anonymous User on Tue Mar 08, 2005 at 01:41:19 PM PDT

Really now? Most activation systems and license files use the Hard Drive Serial Number as part of their core. How does the RAID, be it hardware or software, determine that serial number for software purposes?

[ Parent | Reply to This ]

Activation Schemes[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#22)
by Anonymous User on Wed Mar 09, 2005 at 08:59:52 AM PDT

This sounds like Hard Drive Serial Number issue to me. I have had the same problem with several custom products that used product activation schemes. One company spent a great deal of time with me and we traced how RAID 5 on my 6 physical drive array worked. It appears to have been relevant to timing as to which of the physical drives responded with the serial number. If the one that was active at the time of the installation responded then all was well. If it was one of the others then activation failed. This apparent random failure was what caused our headaches. Eventually this vendor switched to volume name instead of serial number for the activation validation. This is NOT as secure for the vendor since you could install it on another machine with a duplicate volume name, but by adding other drive characteristics in the query you can make it approach the Hard Drive Serial Number uniqueness or at least require that any duplicate installs be done on identically reporting drives of the same name. But if you do that then expanding (by adding drives) or contracting (as in auto-re-configure when a drive fails) would break the activation. In today's environment of SANs, and other distributed storage systems, product activations that depend on the physical properties of the initial storage medium are going to have to be dropped.

[ Parent | Reply to This ]

Thanks[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#24)
by Anonymous User on Thu Mar 10, 2005 at 06:19:49 AM PDT

I'm a Helpdesk Tech and don't handle lincensing in the company I work for for the most part, but was curious about that. I've had to send hard serial numbers to software co's to get license files for users who need access on their laptops when not connect to our network and our FlexLM server...

[ Parent | Reply to This ]

Can't see how much more secure it is[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#27)
by rodoke on Sat Mar 12, 2005 at 11:14:41 AM PDT

seeing as how there are ways to change the serial number. For example, VolumeID from Sysinternals puts it into on tidy CLI program. Though I've never used a RAID setup, so I don't know what effect multiple identically serialed partitions would have.

[ Parent | Reply to This ]

Don't think they mean partition s/n[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#28)
by sconeu on Mon Mar 14, 2005 at 12:53:48 AM PDT

Each hard disk has a serial number burned into ROM. There are ATAPI (and SCSI) commands to query the drive for this serial number.

This is what we are talking about, not the partition serial number laid down by FORMAT.

--
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the United States of America.
[ Parent | Reply to This ]

we go in circles..[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#10)
by Anonymous User on Tue Mar 08, 2005 at 05:43:54 PM PDT

it reminds me of some music software I had in the 80s called Dr. T's <something-or-other>. It had some copy protection that marked a particular sector on the drive. Anything happen (and bad sectors were extremely common on those old ST-506a drives) and it couldn't be used. I think the company went bankrupt, at least I hope so. I for one never bought their stuff again.

[ Parent | Reply to This ]

Data "Integrity"[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#12)
by Eol on Tue Mar 08, 2005 at 07:10:01 PM PDT

Ah, you see what you don't understand is how they're defining integrity. The "integrity" they are concerned with is the integrity of their product activation scheme. Even more disturbing than the mindset that lead to that particularly silly statement is the apparent assumption on the part of the various Adobe support personnel, that the people that call for assistance are the very people trying to "steal" from them. Hey Adobe, how about working from the assumption that the person calling you is one of your "valued customers", rather than a criminal. The erosion for "Fair Use" emboldens this kind of small-minded behavior.

[ Parent | Reply to This ]

Activated Acrobat[ Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#6)
by Anonymous User on Tue Mar 08, 2005 at 01:47:06 PM PDT

I upgraded to Acrobat 7 from Acrobat 6 not long ago, and not being careful about it, I didn't notice the required activation until I went to install the upgrade. (It is mentioned - in small print - on the box and online, I just failed to look for it.) As soon as I noticed that, I promptly popped the disk out, called up my VAR and sent the package back. I simply refuse to give in to these vendor strongarm tactics. So I'll stick with my non-activated Acrobat 6, thank-you-very-much.

Strangely enough, the copy of Acrobat 7 I got for my Mac is not activated, so I kept that one, though I now feel slightly guilty for supporting Adobe at all. For what it's worth Photoshop CS for Mac isn't activated either. Apparently Adobe thinks Windows users are thieves, but Mac users aren't.

[ Reply to This ]

Activation -Again[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#7)
by Anonymous User on Tue Mar 08, 2005 at 02:49:26 PM PDT

That is just another reason why none of my Adobe products will ever get upgraded. If more people would just give Adobe and product activation the middle finger salute maybe they would take notice. I too resent being labeled a thief until I prove otherwise. As I am starting to read in other articles people are finding themselves up the proverbial creek when they rebuild their machines or transfer their software to a new machine and can't reactivate because the company is no longer in business. Take 321 Studios and their DVDXCopy software for instance. Rather than issue a patch to deactivate their activation requirements as they knew they were closing their doors they took it to the company graveyard and really stuck it to their former customer base. Just proves what you as customers really mean to these clowns...not a thing! Why is it that honest people have to be subjected to this arrogance and stupidity because these companies are too lame to come up with ways to protect their intellectual property without frustrating and insulting a large portion of their customer base?

[ Parent | Reply to This ]

law[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#17)
by Anonymous User on Wed Mar 09, 2005 at 05:02:06 AM PDT

There needs to be a consumer protection law passed that addresses this issue, otherwise you are left with a useless product through no wrong doing of your own and no legal/civil recourse. I wonder if anyone has ever tried suing the owners/offices of the defunct company when a situation like this occurs?

[ Parent | Reply to This ]

Acrobat Armed Against Arrays[ Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#8)
by Anonymous User on Tue Mar 08, 2005 at 04:46:02 PM PDT

Suggestion, Since many of us have to use Acrobat 6 or 7 in our daily work, I have a purchased copy of Version 7 but I refuse to comply with Acrobats activation scheme so I used one of the Activation defeat schemes floating around on the newsgroups. It works and no activation is required.

[ Reply to This ]

Acrobat Armed Against Arrays[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#47)
by Anonymous User on Thu Apr 28, 2005 at 07:28:12 AM PDT

Who needs more laws? You can have your cake and eat it too! Pay for a copy of the single user software and use one of the many activation schemes floating around. Adobe gets their money and you get software that performs to your liking!! Everybody is happy!! I am sure that legal sluts will find something criminal about this, but hey, if a buy a car, there are no laws (other than emission) that allow me to modify my vehicle for better performance. (tires, wheels, tranny, etc). So why should software be treated differently?

[ Parent | Reply to This ]

congratulations[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#65)
by Anonymous User on Tue Jun 27, 2006 at 05:28:19 PM PDT

your comment was useless... the whole point of this thread is that activation for acrobat 7 - regardless of whether you do it legit or not - doesn't work on RAID volumes - software OR hardware...

[ Parent | Reply to This ]

Adobe Acrobat activation[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#85)
by LB on Wed Aug 23, 2006 at 08:03:54 AM PDT

I am haveing the same problem. It keeps telling me to reactivate every 40 seconds. Can you point me in the right direction to obtain the activation defeat scheme you speak about. It will be greatly appreciated.

[ Parent | Reply to This ]

Photoshop Elements II[ Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#9)
by auctionhugh on Tue Mar 08, 2005 at 05:18:23 PM PDT

Photoshop Elements II phones home for me every few weeks to supposedly check for "web updates". It never works and locks up PE until I notice it and hit cancel. If the web updated can't work with my always on internet connection, is there any hope for another screwy activation scheme?

-----
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[ Reply to This ]

Adobe Acrobat Activation[ Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#11)
by Anonymous User on Tue Mar 08, 2005 at 05:50:31 PM PDT

Rather than wasting time battling with Adobe, the reader should use one of the schemes to bypass activation that are widely available on the internet. Adobe Product Activation is surprisingly easy to bypass. I purchased both Acrobat and Photoshop CS and bypassed activation on both products. I'll give Adobe my money, but I refuse to use product activation. I feel the same way towards Microsoft, Symantec and any other company that uses this scheme.

[ Reply to This ]

Bypass the Bastards[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#13)
by Anonymous User on Tue Mar 08, 2005 at 08:44:24 PM PDT

I did just that with my Acrobat and Photoshop CS installs. Since they want you to buy a volume license then tell Acrobat or Photoshop that you did. There are two files to overwrite and badabing - you have a multiuser license. Install it on as many computers as you like - (or in this case as many hard drives as your array has). - On another note I find it funny when people call it a RAID array - it's like saying ATM machine. RAID = Redundant ARRAY of Inexpensive Disks, ATM = Automated Teller MACHINE. lol

[ Parent | Reply to This ]

Badabing[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#76)
by jimmyd998 on Tue Aug 08, 2006 at 10:37:23 PM PDT

What two files and what do you overwrite?

[ Parent | Reply to This ]

rftgh[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#174)
by Anonymous User on Sat Jul 05, 2008 at 12:05:54 AM PDT

Adobe activation[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#14)
by Anonymous User on Tue Mar 08, 2005 at 08:57:06 PM PDT

I understabd why you are defeating the schemes but to do so only encourages their behavior as they still get their money. I have not, and will not, "upgrade" to any new Adobe products as their activation scheme is onerous to me. I will buy no product that has it period. If I get left behind so be it. I'm sure they really don't miss the $1000+ I used to give them each year because it is small potatoes to them. But if 10,000 users did the same... I had to use activation removal methods for some legally purchased software because I didn't know it was on the product - those companies no longer have my support. Go bankrupt and cry.

[ Parent | Reply to This ]

bypassing photoshop cs activation[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#60)
by Anonymous User on Sat Nov 19, 2005 at 04:26:16 PM PDT

how do you bypass photoshop cs activation? can someone please send me a reply to leftenantofbaradur@gmail.com

[ Parent | Reply to This ]

Bypass[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#77)
by jimmyd998 on Tue Aug 08, 2006 at 10:39:41 PM PDT

Apparently they have been removed, (or at least my searches haven't found them), so what schemes do you speak of?

[ Parent | Reply to This ]

yes[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#169)
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..or, option 3[ Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#16)
by Anonymous User on Wed Mar 09, 2005 at 04:53:32 AM PDT

...Fire the people that wrote the activitation code if they cannot fix it...this is the dumbest thing I have ever heard come out of a company...fix the damn problem! It's bad enough that we have to deal with the hassle of product activation, but atleast make it work!!!

[ Reply to This ]

Don't wait for Adobe to refund your money!![ Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#18)
by Anonymous User on Wed Mar 09, 2005 at 05:58:48 AM PDT

Adobe has said you need to wait 60 days for them to refund your money. Don't wait!! If you used a credit card for the purchase (ALWAYS use a credit card) you may lose your right to dispute the charge if you wait for Adobe and then Adobe refuses to refund your money. Dispute the charge with your credit card bank NOW (no matter what you said to Adobe -- you can always straighten that out later). Get the charge reversed by your CC now. And enjoy the fact that Adobe will have to pay a chargeback fee. Don't wait for Adobe!!

[ Reply to This ]

I agree...[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#23)
by Anonymous User on Wed Mar 09, 2005 at 05:29:00 PM PDT

If you used a credit card to buy this software, dispute the charge with the credit card company. Some of them (not all) will side with the customer, especially is it's got something to do with what is obviously defective merchandise. (Of course, there's probably some clause in the EULA regarding their not being liable for "suitability of purpose" or some such legalese.) Adobe will have much more trouble blowing off a dispute with a MegaCredit Card Company than they would one with Joe Small Potatoes.

[ Parent | Reply to This ]

Me, too[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#25)
by Anonymous User on Fri Mar 11, 2005 at 11:05:40 AM PDT

I have only disputed two or three charges in my long history of using credit cards, but the banks have ALWAYS sided with me. Why? I can't know for sure, but I imagine it has something to do with the following: (1) I use my credit card for almost all my purchases, so the CC bank makes a nice piece of change with merchant charges from my purchases, so they don't want to lose my business, (2) the bank can charge another fee to the merchant (a chargeback) for a disputed charge that goes against the merchant (and the merchant doesn't really have much power of appeal against the bank); (3) if the merchant's products or terms of use can be shown to be faulty or unfair or unrevealed (which seems fairly easy to do) and you have not yet used the product (which is easy to prove in the case of activated software) -- the chances are excellent that your bank will stand behind you. If they don't, get another bank or credit card (and still refuse to pay the bank, if you really feel like fighting).

[ Parent | Reply to This ]

Don't just stop buying activated products[ Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#19)
by Anonymous User on Wed Mar 09, 2005 at 06:07:09 AM PDT

I have stopped buying activated software. But, I don't just stop: I call the sales department to ask if they have product activation. If they do, I say "thanks, but I guess I'll have to give your product a pass because I never buy activated software." It won't mean much just by itself, but if all of us started to do that, they might start to wonder if we were just the tip of the iceburg. I also visit every online forum for the software and stridently warn all users of the required activation. When Poser 5 came out with product activation, we, the users, hollered so much on the forums that Curious Labs patched the software to remove activation ... and the new Poser 6 about to release will not have activation either.

[ Reply to This ]

Be VERY Afraid![ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#33)
by Anonymous User on Tue Mar 15, 2005 at 07:39:52 AM PDT

Unless they've changed vendors Adobe used the same "product activation" product as Curious Labs. This software is known to be troublesome, and can/does cause system crashes. It was designed for game copy protection, so is *very* aggresive in terms of detecting "suspicious activity" by the victim - er, sorry, paying customer - eg. changing certain M$ virtual memory parameters in the registry will cause an immediate system shut down triggered by the "product activation" software (it thinks you might be trying to capture a game's memory dump!). And yes, it runs 24x7 monitoring your (or is that their? ;-) system, whether a "watched" Adobe product is running or not. Or even still installed - uninstalling the watched app will *not* remove the PA software - it can't, some other app might have been installed and be using it.

Reason it won't work with RAID is probably that it writes quite a lot of proprietary info to your Sector 0 HDD block - not a good idea, and in the same area as used by RAID... Only way to remove it once installed is to re-FDISK your primary hard drive!!!

Note also that any program failue of a watched product - e.g. a memory fault - will trigger a system crash. Not a common problem with Adobe products perhaps, but that was what common with Poser, and was the reason that CL withdrew it, once we'd demonstrated this "feature" to them.

And finally, note that this PA software also provides concealed "call home" features, to send data to the softare vendor. I don't know if Adobe enables that part or not.

(All the above info was derived from the PA vendor's own White Paper, since removed from their developers' website, along with the removal tools that they used to provide - which were nasty anyway, requiring you to do a full install/update to latest version of their code, with EULA agreement, etc., *BEFORE* the uninstall would operate. It was in fact all innocuous, but scary enough to force me to test it all on a sacrificial system, before I'd risk it on a live one.)

And yes, I stopped my regular upgrade of Photoshop (starting with 3.0) the day Adobe added PA to Photoshop.

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acrobat IS phoning home[ Parent | Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#50)
by Anonymous User on Thu May 05, 2005 at 10:39:26 PM PDT

I was reading your comment and the forum thread in general and found myself thinking " I wonder if Norton Internet Security is letting Acrobat talk" So I went into my nis settings and lo and behold you CAN'T get nis to block acrobat's access. It has interfered with my network security system and won't allow me to correct,edit or overide the settings. My copy is ligit but I'm on dial up. I have noticed my conection is frequently booting up for no apparent reason since I installed acrobat 7. This is sabotage, how do I know that it hasn't comprimised other elements of my firewall? If I leave my system on overnight to render a scene or whatever is adobe going to pay for my additional dial up use.Do I have to crawl around on the floor to protect myself from their product by unplugging my phone line ?Quite an image maybe when Flash is ported into the adobe gauntlet I'll use their Mcproduct to animate just that) I'd love to see the stats on wasted connection time being created by this ,sounds like the basis for a class action law suit to me. anyone else running norton here ? Check and see whats happening for you.

[ Parent | Reply to This ]

What a crock...[ Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#20)
by Anonymous User on Wed Mar 09, 2005 at 06:22:15 AM PDT

I like the way that Adobe twists this around and points the finger at their customer. The problem isn't that he has a RAID setup, it is Adobe's brain-dead product activation procedure. Good job, Adobe; take aim at the "problem" again and maybe you'll shoot yourself in the other foot....

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Thanks for sparing me from this![ Reply to This ] (none / 0) (#21)
by Anonymous User on Wed Mar 09, 2005 at 06:55:19 AM PDT

I was considering purchasing Adobe 7, now I won't. I will also recommend against upgrading to it for our 2000+ users. We don't need the new features anyway. We can probably look at open source instead if we want any of their 'new' features.
- linlu :)
p.s. yes i know we qualify for volume licensing, but we can do better.

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