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Adobe Product Activation

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  • D Offline
    D Offline
    David Wulff
    wrote on last edited by
    #1

    I've been tracking this one down over the last couple of weekw as part of my attempt to move all my day-to-day tasks from Windows XP over to Windows Vista: I have been unable to activate Adobe Acrobat Professional 7.0 (stand alone, not part of the Creative Suite) on my new machine. After having already gone through the Adobe telephone activation and finding the clerk unable to help me, I was advised to contact my reseller for support. Well today (Boxing Day) I finally got a response back. It seems that you cannot install newer Adobe products on RAID arrays. Adobe are aware of the problem - but they have no plans to do anything about it. Yep that's right, your investment in higher speed and redundancy on your development and design workstation is useless if you want to use newer Adobe products. Apparently the activation software they use writes hidden sectors to the boot drive of your system drive and is unable to cope with RAID arrays (and in certain cases dual boot systems that write to the same sectors of the disk that their activation software uses). The official Adobe workaround is... (I hope you are sitting comfortably):

    Reinstall the Adobe application on a single hard disk. Running an Adobe application on a RAID array may cause activation problems. If you installed the application on a RAID array and the application returns activation errors, reinstall and activate the application on a single hard disk on which Windows is installed and which is separate from the disk array.

    You have to reinstall Windows on a single hard drive and use that installation to run and activate Adobe software. I wonder if Microsoft will let me have that second Windows license for free... or should I just phone Adobe for the cost code? Now that is service! I'm going to spend a few more hours trying to get this to work, so if anyone has succeeded in getting a recent Adobe product (specificaly Acrobat 7) activated on a RAID array then please let me know. I will buy you a pack of beer if you can help me get this working. If I can't get it working then I will be contacting Adobe for a refund - even though I was using the software fine under XP for six months. If they complain I will take Adobe Systems UK to small claims court[^]. The great irony there is that you need Adobe Acrobate Reader to fi

    R D P S A 13 Replies Last reply
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    • D David Wulff

      I've been tracking this one down over the last couple of weekw as part of my attempt to move all my day-to-day tasks from Windows XP over to Windows Vista: I have been unable to activate Adobe Acrobat Professional 7.0 (stand alone, not part of the Creative Suite) on my new machine. After having already gone through the Adobe telephone activation and finding the clerk unable to help me, I was advised to contact my reseller for support. Well today (Boxing Day) I finally got a response back. It seems that you cannot install newer Adobe products on RAID arrays. Adobe are aware of the problem - but they have no plans to do anything about it. Yep that's right, your investment in higher speed and redundancy on your development and design workstation is useless if you want to use newer Adobe products. Apparently the activation software they use writes hidden sectors to the boot drive of your system drive and is unable to cope with RAID arrays (and in certain cases dual boot systems that write to the same sectors of the disk that their activation software uses). The official Adobe workaround is... (I hope you are sitting comfortably):

      Reinstall the Adobe application on a single hard disk. Running an Adobe application on a RAID array may cause activation problems. If you installed the application on a RAID array and the application returns activation errors, reinstall and activate the application on a single hard disk on which Windows is installed and which is separate from the disk array.

      You have to reinstall Windows on a single hard drive and use that installation to run and activate Adobe software. I wonder if Microsoft will let me have that second Windows license for free... or should I just phone Adobe for the cost code? Now that is service! I'm going to spend a few more hours trying to get this to work, so if anyone has succeeded in getting a recent Adobe product (specificaly Acrobat 7) activated on a RAID array then please let me know. I will buy you a pack of beer if you can help me get this working. If I can't get it working then I will be contacting Adobe for a refund - even though I was using the software fine under XP for six months. If they complain I will take Adobe Systems UK to small claims court[^]. The great irony there is that you need Adobe Acrobate Reader to fi

      R Offline
      R Offline
      Rob Manderson
      wrote on last edited by
      #2

      Ouch! I could understand (barely) this requirement if we were talking a dedicated machine used solely for the application in a niche market (but barely - even then the developers need a dose of reality). For a consumer level product? Completely unacceptable.

      Rob Manderson I'm working on a version for Visual Lisp++ My blog http://blogs.wdevs.com/ultramaroon/[^] My blog mirror http://robmanderson.blogspot.com[^]

      D 1 Reply Last reply
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      • R Rob Manderson

        Ouch! I could understand (barely) this requirement if we were talking a dedicated machine used solely for the application in a niche market (but barely - even then the developers need a dose of reality). For a consumer level product? Completely unacceptable.

        Rob Manderson I'm working on a version for Visual Lisp++ My blog http://blogs.wdevs.com/ultramaroon/[^] My blog mirror http://robmanderson.blogspot.com[^]

        D Offline
        D Offline
        David Wulff
        wrote on last edited by
        #3

        Apparently it is the same with the newer Photoshop versions too. I am currently using Photoshop 6, but was looking to upgrade to their Creative Suite Premium 2.0 in the new year because I wanted to start using InDesign (and figured I would get locked in to the future upgradibility sooner rather than later the way costs are rising each release). This is a real problem for me as I spent a fortune a few months back upgrading my main workstation with the aim of it lasting a couple of years or more and I'm using a RAID0 array as a result of that. I would like to upgrade to the newer Photoshop to keep my bad design skills up to date, but I can't justify the cost of another PC just to run Adobe products. I am going to try and install Acrobat on a virtual machine and see if I can activate it. At least that would allow me to use it without requiring a new PC, and I could justify using an MSDN Windows license on it ethically if not legally. I don't know if it work yet. Fingers crossed...


        Ðavid Wulff What kind of music should programmers listen to?
        Join the Code Project Last.fm group | dwulff
        I'm so gangsta I eat cereal without the milk

        Q L A 3 Replies Last reply
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        • D David Wulff

          Apparently it is the same with the newer Photoshop versions too. I am currently using Photoshop 6, but was looking to upgrade to their Creative Suite Premium 2.0 in the new year because I wanted to start using InDesign (and figured I would get locked in to the future upgradibility sooner rather than later the way costs are rising each release). This is a real problem for me as I spent a fortune a few months back upgrading my main workstation with the aim of it lasting a couple of years or more and I'm using a RAID0 array as a result of that. I would like to upgrade to the newer Photoshop to keep my bad design skills up to date, but I can't justify the cost of another PC just to run Adobe products. I am going to try and install Acrobat on a virtual machine and see if I can activate it. At least that would allow me to use it without requiring a new PC, and I could justify using an MSDN Windows license on it ethically if not legally. I don't know if it work yet. Fingers crossed...


          Ðavid Wulff What kind of music should programmers listen to?
          Join the Code Project Last.fm group | dwulff
          I'm so gangsta I eat cereal without the milk

          Q Offline
          Q Offline
          QuiJohn
          wrote on last edited by
          #4

          Adobe's products have always struck me as user hostile, but this is getting a bit silly.

          1 Reply Last reply
          0
          • D David Wulff

            I've been tracking this one down over the last couple of weekw as part of my attempt to move all my day-to-day tasks from Windows XP over to Windows Vista: I have been unable to activate Adobe Acrobat Professional 7.0 (stand alone, not part of the Creative Suite) on my new machine. After having already gone through the Adobe telephone activation and finding the clerk unable to help me, I was advised to contact my reseller for support. Well today (Boxing Day) I finally got a response back. It seems that you cannot install newer Adobe products on RAID arrays. Adobe are aware of the problem - but they have no plans to do anything about it. Yep that's right, your investment in higher speed and redundancy on your development and design workstation is useless if you want to use newer Adobe products. Apparently the activation software they use writes hidden sectors to the boot drive of your system drive and is unable to cope with RAID arrays (and in certain cases dual boot systems that write to the same sectors of the disk that their activation software uses). The official Adobe workaround is... (I hope you are sitting comfortably):

            Reinstall the Adobe application on a single hard disk. Running an Adobe application on a RAID array may cause activation problems. If you installed the application on a RAID array and the application returns activation errors, reinstall and activate the application on a single hard disk on which Windows is installed and which is separate from the disk array.

            You have to reinstall Windows on a single hard drive and use that installation to run and activate Adobe software. I wonder if Microsoft will let me have that second Windows license for free... or should I just phone Adobe for the cost code? Now that is service! I'm going to spend a few more hours trying to get this to work, so if anyone has succeeded in getting a recent Adobe product (specificaly Acrobat 7) activated on a RAID array then please let me know. I will buy you a pack of beer if you can help me get this working. If I can't get it working then I will be contacting Adobe for a refund - even though I was using the software fine under XP for six months. If they complain I will take Adobe Systems UK to small claims court[^]. The great irony there is that you need Adobe Acrobate Reader to fi

            D Offline
            D Offline
            David Stone
            wrote on last edited by
            #5

            Which Acrobat Pro features do you use? Could you get away with using just Reader?

            And I get on my knees and pray We don't get fooled again

            D 1 Reply Last reply
            0
            • D David Wulff

              I've been tracking this one down over the last couple of weekw as part of my attempt to move all my day-to-day tasks from Windows XP over to Windows Vista: I have been unable to activate Adobe Acrobat Professional 7.0 (stand alone, not part of the Creative Suite) on my new machine. After having already gone through the Adobe telephone activation and finding the clerk unable to help me, I was advised to contact my reseller for support. Well today (Boxing Day) I finally got a response back. It seems that you cannot install newer Adobe products on RAID arrays. Adobe are aware of the problem - but they have no plans to do anything about it. Yep that's right, your investment in higher speed and redundancy on your development and design workstation is useless if you want to use newer Adobe products. Apparently the activation software they use writes hidden sectors to the boot drive of your system drive and is unable to cope with RAID arrays (and in certain cases dual boot systems that write to the same sectors of the disk that their activation software uses). The official Adobe workaround is... (I hope you are sitting comfortably):

              Reinstall the Adobe application on a single hard disk. Running an Adobe application on a RAID array may cause activation problems. If you installed the application on a RAID array and the application returns activation errors, reinstall and activate the application on a single hard disk on which Windows is installed and which is separate from the disk array.

              You have to reinstall Windows on a single hard drive and use that installation to run and activate Adobe software. I wonder if Microsoft will let me have that second Windows license for free... or should I just phone Adobe for the cost code? Now that is service! I'm going to spend a few more hours trying to get this to work, so if anyone has succeeded in getting a recent Adobe product (specificaly Acrobat 7) activated on a RAID array then please let me know. I will buy you a pack of beer if you can help me get this working. If I can't get it working then I will be contacting Adobe for a refund - even though I was using the software fine under XP for six months. If they complain I will take Adobe Systems UK to small claims court[^]. The great irony there is that you need Adobe Acrobate Reader to fi

              P Offline
              P Offline
              peterchen
              wrote on last edited by
              #6

              I know a few products that should be activated in the rectums of project managers signing off such "features". :mad:


              Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Velopers, Develprs, Developers!
              We are a big screwed up dysfunctional psychotic happy family - some more screwed up, others more happy, but everybody's psychotic joint venture definition of CP
              Linkify!|Fold With Us!

              R 1 Reply Last reply
              0
              • P peterchen

                I know a few products that should be activated in the rectums of project managers signing off such "features". :mad:


                Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers, Velopers, Develprs, Developers!
                We are a big screwed up dysfunctional psychotic happy family - some more screwed up, others more happy, but everybody's psychotic joint venture definition of CP
                Linkify!|Fold With Us!

                R Offline
                R Offline
                Rob Manderson
                wrote on last edited by
                #7

                A disgustingly vivid image! :)

                Rob Manderson I'm working on a version for Visual Lisp++ My blog http://blogs.wdevs.com/ultramaroon/[^] My blog mirror http://robmanderson.blogspot.com[^]

                J 1 Reply Last reply
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                • R Rob Manderson

                  A disgustingly vivid image! :)

                  Rob Manderson I'm working on a version for Visual Lisp++ My blog http://blogs.wdevs.com/ultramaroon/[^] My blog mirror http://robmanderson.blogspot.com[^]

                  J Offline
                  J Offline
                  Jorgen Sigvardsson
                  wrote on last edited by
                  #8

                  Disgustingly vivid sensation for the managers I reckon.. :-D

                  -- From the Makers of Futurama

                  D 1 Reply Last reply
                  0
                  • D David Wulff

                    I've been tracking this one down over the last couple of weekw as part of my attempt to move all my day-to-day tasks from Windows XP over to Windows Vista: I have been unable to activate Adobe Acrobat Professional 7.0 (stand alone, not part of the Creative Suite) on my new machine. After having already gone through the Adobe telephone activation and finding the clerk unable to help me, I was advised to contact my reseller for support. Well today (Boxing Day) I finally got a response back. It seems that you cannot install newer Adobe products on RAID arrays. Adobe are aware of the problem - but they have no plans to do anything about it. Yep that's right, your investment in higher speed and redundancy on your development and design workstation is useless if you want to use newer Adobe products. Apparently the activation software they use writes hidden sectors to the boot drive of your system drive and is unable to cope with RAID arrays (and in certain cases dual boot systems that write to the same sectors of the disk that their activation software uses). The official Adobe workaround is... (I hope you are sitting comfortably):

                    Reinstall the Adobe application on a single hard disk. Running an Adobe application on a RAID array may cause activation problems. If you installed the application on a RAID array and the application returns activation errors, reinstall and activate the application on a single hard disk on which Windows is installed and which is separate from the disk array.

                    You have to reinstall Windows on a single hard drive and use that installation to run and activate Adobe software. I wonder if Microsoft will let me have that second Windows license for free... or should I just phone Adobe for the cost code? Now that is service! I'm going to spend a few more hours trying to get this to work, so if anyone has succeeded in getting a recent Adobe product (specificaly Acrobat 7) activated on a RAID array then please let me know. I will buy you a pack of beer if you can help me get this working. If I can't get it working then I will be contacting Adobe for a refund - even though I was using the software fine under XP for six months. If they complain I will take Adobe Systems UK to small claims court[^]. The great irony there is that you need Adobe Acrobate Reader to fi

                    S Offline
                    S Offline
                    Sean Cundiff
                    wrote on last edited by
                    #9

                    ... sucks. I've been fighting the good fight for two weeks trying to activate the adobe web bundle.

                    -Sean ---- Shag a Lizard

                    1 Reply Last reply
                    0
                    • D David Wulff

                      I've been tracking this one down over the last couple of weekw as part of my attempt to move all my day-to-day tasks from Windows XP over to Windows Vista: I have been unable to activate Adobe Acrobat Professional 7.0 (stand alone, not part of the Creative Suite) on my new machine. After having already gone through the Adobe telephone activation and finding the clerk unable to help me, I was advised to contact my reseller for support. Well today (Boxing Day) I finally got a response back. It seems that you cannot install newer Adobe products on RAID arrays. Adobe are aware of the problem - but they have no plans to do anything about it. Yep that's right, your investment in higher speed and redundancy on your development and design workstation is useless if you want to use newer Adobe products. Apparently the activation software they use writes hidden sectors to the boot drive of your system drive and is unable to cope with RAID arrays (and in certain cases dual boot systems that write to the same sectors of the disk that their activation software uses). The official Adobe workaround is... (I hope you are sitting comfortably):

                      Reinstall the Adobe application on a single hard disk. Running an Adobe application on a RAID array may cause activation problems. If you installed the application on a RAID array and the application returns activation errors, reinstall and activate the application on a single hard disk on which Windows is installed and which is separate from the disk array.

                      You have to reinstall Windows on a single hard drive and use that installation to run and activate Adobe software. I wonder if Microsoft will let me have that second Windows license for free... or should I just phone Adobe for the cost code? Now that is service! I'm going to spend a few more hours trying to get this to work, so if anyone has succeeded in getting a recent Adobe product (specificaly Acrobat 7) activated on a RAID array then please let me know. I will buy you a pack of beer if you can help me get this working. If I can't get it working then I will be contacting Adobe for a refund - even though I was using the software fine under XP for six months. If they complain I will take Adobe Systems UK to small claims court[^]. The great irony there is that you need Adobe Acrobate Reader to fi

                      A Offline
                      A Offline
                      alex barylski
                      wrote on last edited by
                      #10

                      Probably not *as good* as Adobe products but... OpenOffice lets you to create PDF files...just about anything you can imagine...atleast that's been my experience...athough advanced features like FORM support might not be possible...static documents certainly are... It's stories like this that make me absolutely hate using Windows and is why I semi-switched to Ubuntu... Cheers :)

                      It's frustrating being a genius and living the life of a moron!!!

                      R 1 Reply Last reply
                      0
                      • D David Stone

                        Which Acrobat Pro features do you use? Could you get away with using just Reader?

                        And I get on my knees and pray We don't get fooled again

                        D Offline
                        D Offline
                        David Wulff
                        wrote on last edited by
                        #11

                        I use it for preparing published documents before they go to press.


                        Ðavid Wulff What kind of music should programmers listen to?
                        Join the Code Project Last.fm group | dwulff
                        I'm so gangsta I eat cereal without the milk

                        D 1 Reply Last reply
                        0
                        • J Jorgen Sigvardsson

                          Disgustingly vivid sensation for the managers I reckon.. :-D

                          -- From the Makers of Futurama

                          D Offline
                          D Offline
                          David Wulff
                          wrote on last edited by
                          #12

                          I dunno, I suspect a fair few of them would probably enjoy it. :~


                          Ðavid Wulff What kind of music should programmers listen to?
                          Join the Code Project Last.fm group | dwulff
                          I'm so gangsta I eat cereal without the milk

                          1 Reply Last reply
                          0
                          • A alex barylski

                            Probably not *as good* as Adobe products but... OpenOffice lets you to create PDF files...just about anything you can imagine...atleast that's been my experience...athough advanced features like FORM support might not be possible...static documents certainly are... It's stories like this that make me absolutely hate using Windows and is why I semi-switched to Ubuntu... Cheers :)

                            It's frustrating being a genius and living the life of a moron!!!

                            R Offline
                            R Offline
                            Rob Manderson
                            wrote on last edited by
                            #13

                            Hockey wrote:

                            It's stories like this that make me absolutely hate using Windows

                            The story has nothing to do with Windows. Same issue could/would arise on Ubuntu or any other O/S.

                            Rob Manderson I'm working on a version for Visual Lisp++ My blog http://blogs.wdevs.com/ultramaroon/[^] My blog mirror http://robmanderson.blogspot.com[^]

                            1 Reply Last reply
                            0
                            • D David Wulff

                              I use it for preparing published documents before they go to press.


                              Ðavid Wulff What kind of music should programmers listen to?
                              Join the Code Project Last.fm group | dwulff
                              I'm so gangsta I eat cereal without the milk

                              D Offline
                              D Offline
                              David Stone
                              wrote on last edited by
                              #14

                              Could you use something like Foxit Editor[^]?

                              And I get on my knees and pray We don't get fooled again

                              D 1 Reply Last reply
                              0
                              • D David Wulff

                                I've been tracking this one down over the last couple of weekw as part of my attempt to move all my day-to-day tasks from Windows XP over to Windows Vista: I have been unable to activate Adobe Acrobat Professional 7.0 (stand alone, not part of the Creative Suite) on my new machine. After having already gone through the Adobe telephone activation and finding the clerk unable to help me, I was advised to contact my reseller for support. Well today (Boxing Day) I finally got a response back. It seems that you cannot install newer Adobe products on RAID arrays. Adobe are aware of the problem - but they have no plans to do anything about it. Yep that's right, your investment in higher speed and redundancy on your development and design workstation is useless if you want to use newer Adobe products. Apparently the activation software they use writes hidden sectors to the boot drive of your system drive and is unable to cope with RAID arrays (and in certain cases dual boot systems that write to the same sectors of the disk that their activation software uses). The official Adobe workaround is... (I hope you are sitting comfortably):

                                Reinstall the Adobe application on a single hard disk. Running an Adobe application on a RAID array may cause activation problems. If you installed the application on a RAID array and the application returns activation errors, reinstall and activate the application on a single hard disk on which Windows is installed and which is separate from the disk array.

                                You have to reinstall Windows on a single hard drive and use that installation to run and activate Adobe software. I wonder if Microsoft will let me have that second Windows license for free... or should I just phone Adobe for the cost code? Now that is service! I'm going to spend a few more hours trying to get this to work, so if anyone has succeeded in getting a recent Adobe product (specificaly Acrobat 7) activated on a RAID array then please let me know. I will buy you a pack of beer if you can help me get this working. If I can't get it working then I will be contacting Adobe for a refund - even though I was using the software fine under XP for six months. If they complain I will take Adobe Systems UK to small claims court[^]. The great irony there is that you need Adobe Acrobate Reader to fi

                                D Offline
                                D Offline
                                David Knechtges
                                wrote on last edited by
                                #15

                                I have no idea if it would work, but you might try putting it under a virtual machine using either VMware or Virtual PC. I think Virtual PC is free from Microsoft. If you run it under the VM, the activation will write its boot sector stuff in the VM's disk, and ignore the host. This way, you would be both backed up through RAID on your host, and the VM will run the Adobe software. David

                                D 1 Reply Last reply
                                0
                                • D David Stone

                                  Could you use something like Foxit Editor[^]?

                                  And I get on my knees and pray We don't get fooled again

                                  D Offline
                                  D Offline
                                  David Wulff
                                  wrote on last edited by
                                  #16

                                  The publisher (a magazine publisher) have very strict guidelines about the format I need to supply copy and the deadlines are tight. Everything has to pass through their preflight checks before they'll take it on and Acrobat makes the process somewhat easy bearable. I've had a quick poke around at Foxit Editor but I can't see anything on the toolbar or menu for specifing how fonts are embedded or how to specify clip/bleed margins, etc? Normally I would do that through a combination of Distiller and Acrobat.


                                  Ðavid Wulff What kind of music should programmers listen to?
                                  Join the Code Project Last.fm group | dwulff
                                  I'm so gangsta I eat cereal without the milk

                                  1 Reply Last reply
                                  0
                                  • D David Knechtges

                                    I have no idea if it would work, but you might try putting it under a virtual machine using either VMware or Virtual PC. I think Virtual PC is free from Microsoft. If you run it under the VM, the activation will write its boot sector stuff in the VM's disk, and ignore the host. This way, you would be both backed up through RAID on your host, and the VM will run the Adobe software. David

                                    D Offline
                                    D Offline
                                    David Wulff
                                    wrote on last edited by
                                    #17

                                    That is something I hope to try tomorrow or (more likely) Thursday. It will add extra overhead to using the software. The machine I would be using can handle it but it is the hassle of having to share the documents between the virtual machine and the host that I'm not looking forward to. I've read horror stories about how the Adobe activation software has trashed disk partitions so I'm concerned now that I might have damaged my Vista install. I've just finished setting up the damned machine and I really don't want to have to start again! Uninstalling the unactivated Acrobat doesn't remove the activation software which remains on your machine permanently -- updating its hidden boot sector data every time your machine boots. :mad:


                                    Ðavid Wulff What kind of music should programmers listen to?
                                    Join the Code Project Last.fm group | dwulff
                                    I'm so gangsta I eat cereal without the milk

                                    A 1 Reply Last reply
                                    0
                                    • D David Wulff

                                      Apparently it is the same with the newer Photoshop versions too. I am currently using Photoshop 6, but was looking to upgrade to their Creative Suite Premium 2.0 in the new year because I wanted to start using InDesign (and figured I would get locked in to the future upgradibility sooner rather than later the way costs are rising each release). This is a real problem for me as I spent a fortune a few months back upgrading my main workstation with the aim of it lasting a couple of years or more and I'm using a RAID0 array as a result of that. I would like to upgrade to the newer Photoshop to keep my bad design skills up to date, but I can't justify the cost of another PC just to run Adobe products. I am going to try and install Acrobat on a virtual machine and see if I can activate it. At least that would allow me to use it without requiring a new PC, and I could justify using an MSDN Windows license on it ethically if not legally. I don't know if it work yet. Fingers crossed...


                                      Ðavid Wulff What kind of music should programmers listen to?
                                      Join the Code Project Last.fm group | dwulff
                                      I'm so gangsta I eat cereal without the milk

                                      L Offline
                                      L Offline
                                      Lost User
                                      wrote on last edited by
                                      #18

                                      I use Creative Suite 2 Premium but have my machine setup to use a single drive as the O/S drive/software drive (160 GB PATA) and a raid array (0+1) as my project drive (2x160 GB PATA, 2x160 GB SATA). IMO having a RAID 0 drive for everything pretty much throws out the advantages of the speed increase because the RAID is constantly having to do all of the system seeks as well as the data file stuff. If I were in your boots I would accept that Adobe activation just plain sucks, add a single drive for your system drive, image the RAID to it, make it your boot drive and use the RAID for data files. You'd be up and running with it in a matter of a few hours. Overall I think you will see a speed increase by doing it this way. BTW InDesign is very good - I use it for all my in-house documents as well as the published design work I do. Cheers, Drew.

                                      D 1 Reply Last reply
                                      0
                                      • L Lost User

                                        I use Creative Suite 2 Premium but have my machine setup to use a single drive as the O/S drive/software drive (160 GB PATA) and a raid array (0+1) as my project drive (2x160 GB PATA, 2x160 GB SATA). IMO having a RAID 0 drive for everything pretty much throws out the advantages of the speed increase because the RAID is constantly having to do all of the system seeks as well as the data file stuff. If I were in your boots I would accept that Adobe activation just plain sucks, add a single drive for your system drive, image the RAID to it, make it your boot drive and use the RAID for data files. You'd be up and running with it in a matter of a few hours. Overall I think you will see a speed increase by doing it this way. BTW InDesign is very good - I use it for all my in-house documents as well as the published design work I do. Cheers, Drew.

                                        D Offline
                                        D Offline
                                        David Wulff
                                        wrote on last edited by
                                        #19

                                        Drew Stainton wrote:

                                        IMO having a RAID 0 drive for everything pretty much throws out the advantages of the speed increase because the RAID is constantly having to do all of the system seeks as well as the data file stuff.

                                        It's even worse than that for me because most of the data files are stored on a server and accessed over a network share. I do have a second parition on the machine which hosts the folders for documents, music, etc, and the temporary application files. (Vista makes it so much easier to redirect them than previous versions of Windows.) Applications are installed on the OS drive though because so many of them require it. Rebuilding the machine now would be a major PITA. It would be more than a few hours downtime now the new machine is pretty much broken in how I like it. I could add a new drive, install Windows on it and transfer all my settings, but it does seem to give me some speed benefit with the way it is set up. VS 2005 build times have dropped to just five or ten seconds on projects that previously took 30 seconds or more to build on my old workstation.

                                        Drew Stainton wrote:

                                        BTW InDesign is very good - I use it for all my in-house documents as well as the published design work I do.

                                        Most of my published designs are full page ads for magazines, rather than books and so on. A few years ago I used to use QuarkXPress but found it too much for my needs at the time so I've been using Photoshop ever since. It is not ideal though, and InDesign looks like it would be the best option for me now -- and allow me to migrate my existing work easily without having to learn an entirely new environment and workflow. And, of course, it will have much tighter integration with PDF than the current versions of QuarkXPress. That's assuming I can get it installed! :rolleyes:


                                        Ðavid Wulff What kind of music should programmers listen to?
                                        Join the Code Project Last.fm group | dwulff
                                        I'm so gangsta I eat cereal without the milk

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                                          Drew Stainton wrote:

                                          IMO having a RAID 0 drive for everything pretty much throws out the advantages of the speed increase because the RAID is constantly having to do all of the system seeks as well as the data file stuff.

                                          It's even worse than that for me because most of the data files are stored on a server and accessed over a network share. I do have a second parition on the machine which hosts the folders for documents, music, etc, and the temporary application files. (Vista makes it so much easier to redirect them than previous versions of Windows.) Applications are installed on the OS drive though because so many of them require it. Rebuilding the machine now would be a major PITA. It would be more than a few hours downtime now the new machine is pretty much broken in how I like it. I could add a new drive, install Windows on it and transfer all my settings, but it does seem to give me some speed benefit with the way it is set up. VS 2005 build times have dropped to just five or ten seconds on projects that previously took 30 seconds or more to build on my old workstation.

                                          Drew Stainton wrote:

                                          BTW InDesign is very good - I use it for all my in-house documents as well as the published design work I do.

                                          Most of my published designs are full page ads for magazines, rather than books and so on. A few years ago I used to use QuarkXPress but found it too much for my needs at the time so I've been using Photoshop ever since. It is not ideal though, and InDesign looks like it would be the best option for me now -- and allow me to migrate my existing work easily without having to learn an entirely new environment and workflow. And, of course, it will have much tighter integration with PDF than the current versions of QuarkXPress. That's assuming I can get it installed! :rolleyes:


                                          Ðavid Wulff What kind of music should programmers listen to?
                                          Join the Code Project Last.fm group | dwulff
                                          I'm so gangsta I eat cereal without the milk

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                                          David Wulff wrote:

                                          It's even worse than that for me because most of the data files are stored on a server and accessed over a network share.

                                          Ahh, that does make it rough.

                                          David Wulff wrote:

                                          Most of my published designs are full page ads for magazines, rather than books and so on. A few years ago I used to use QuarkXPress

                                          I think InDesign will be right up your alley then. It's quite versatile and I find gives you better control for any kind of page layout job than either Photshop or Illustrator (which I also use quite a bit). After preflight I can create an InDesign package for sending to the print beureau which they prefer over PDF because they can specifically change the output settings to perfectly match their presses. FYI I bought "InDesign CS2 Industrial-Strength Page-Layout Techniques" by Olav Martin Kvern and David Blatner. It's been a great reference and is recommended by the Adobe Indesign Dev. Team. Cheers, Drew

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