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.
If your software is affected by the activation server shut down then you will receive an error that the Activation server is unavailable. The specific affected products are as follows:
- Acrobat 7.0 - Windows
- After Effects 7.0
- Audition 3.0
- Captivate 1.0
- Contribute 2.0
- Contribute 3.0
- Creative Suite 2.0
- Director MX 2004
- Dreamweaver MX 2004
- Fireworks MX 2004
- Flash Paper 2.0
- Freehand MX
- GoLive CS2
- GoLive 9.0
- Illustrator CS2
- InCopy CS2
- InDesign CS2
- Macromedia Studo MX 2004
- Photoshop CS
- Photoshop CS2
- Photoshop Elements 4.0
- Photoshop Elements 5.0
- Premiere Pro 7.0
- Production Studio Premium
The activation server being shut down will not affect currently installed and activated Adobe software. You will only face this difficulty if you need to reactivate the software.
To remedy this difficulty we have made available a version of these software titles that does not require activation for Users who have previously purchase the affected software. For additional details and specific links to the software please see:
Error: Activation Server Unavailable | CS2 products, Acrobat 7 - http://helpx.adobe.com/x-productkb/policy-pricing/creative-suite-2-act ivation-end-life.html
Error: Activation Server Unavailable | Macromedia branded products - http://helpx.adobe.com/x-productkb/policy-pricing/macromedia-legacy-ac tivation-error.html
If the software title you have purchased is affected by the activation server being shut down, but is not available for download in the previously referenced pages, then please contact our support team at http://www.adobe.com/support/chat/ivrchat.html. Please be aware our support team will not be able to provide assistance for downloading or installing the Creative Suite 2 software.
System requirements
Creative Suite 2 software was only designed to run in the following operating environments:
- Mac OS X v.10.2.8–v.10.3.8. PowerPC® G4 or G5 processor
- Microsoft® Windows® 2000/Windows XP. Intel® Pentium® III or 4 processor
Extraction instructions
If you are receiving a message to insert disc two please see the following extraction instructions:
In the English version of the software the file CreativeSuiteCS2Disc2 extracts to C:\Creative Suite\Adobe Creative Suite 2.0\. CreativeSuiteCS2Disc1 and CreativeSuiteCS2Disc3 both extract to C:\Creative Suite CS2\Adobe Creative Suite 2.0\.
Please copy the contents of the C:\Creative Suite\Adobe Creative Suite 2.0\ folder to the C:\Creative Suite CS2\Adobe Creative Suite 2.0\ folder and you will no longer be prompted to insert disc two.
Additional information
Some Users have reported success getting Creative Suite 2 to install under Windows 7 64-bit. Please see http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-windows_pro grams/windows-7-is-not-compatible-with-adobe-photoshop/6f1b4955-7166-4 b8f-ad9b-5d19150f803f for more information.
Still facing installation difficulties?
If you are experiencing an installation issue with the software currently available I would recommend creating a new thread in the Downloading, Installing, and Setting up forum - http://forums.adobe.com/community/download_install_setup. If you can please make sure to include the following:
• What software are you trying to install?
• Which operating system are you using?
• Was the software previously installed prior to downloading the non-activating version currently available?
• What specific error messages are you receiving when trying to install?
Please also see the original discussion on this topic at http://forums.adobe.com/message/4919014#4919014.