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CS5 Master Collection Mac — genuine serialized licence, but Adobe registration rejects serial - please assist

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Dear Adobe Legacy Experts and Community,

I have a genuine Adobe Creative Suite 5 Master Collection perpetual licence for Mac, originally purchased and installed from the physical CS5 DVD set.

I still have a fully working installation on an older Mac. The installation contains Adobe's SWIDTAG licensing file identifying:

Adobe Creative Suite 5 Master Collection
MasterCollection-CS5-Mac-GM-MUL
activation_status: serialized

The SWIDTAG contains my 24-digit Master Collection serial number.

However, when I enter this serial in my current Adobe account under Products → Register a product, Adobe returns:

"The provided serial number is invalid."

I have verified the serial directly from the existing licensed installation.

I need to reinstall CS5 Master Collection on another Mac. Adobe's current documentation says registered CS5 products can be downloaded from an Adobe account, but I cannot register this legitimate licence.

Can Adobe provide the official CS5 Master Collection Mac installer, or otherwise associate this existing licence with my Adobe account?

I am specifically looking for an official Adobe download, not a third-party installer.

Many thanks for your time and consideration… I look forward to your replies

John T Smith

Community Expert

My last thought on this… I am on Windows, not Mac, and I build my own so every computer I have built through the years as technology has improved has had a DVD drive

I have never had a DVD go bad, but I have read other messages that SOME people have been able to retry reading and finally get the entire contents of a DVD copied to a folder on a computer’s internal drive and then install from there… I do not know the file structure on a Mac DVD so I don’t know if copying all DVD contents to a single folder will work… but it might

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John T Smith

Community Expert

As far as I know, the ONLY way to download is at this link https://account.adobe.com/products

So if your program is not at that link there is no official download to be had

At one time chat support would verify a serial number, I don’t know if that is true now

This is how you contact support
https://helpx.adobe.com/contact.html?rghtup=autoOpen

- and enter AGENT in the box asking How can we help you?

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John T Smith

Community Expert

>originally purchased and installed from the physical CS5 DVD set.

I will GUESS that means your other Mac does not have a DVD drive… since you are not able to find an official download you might want to consider buying an external drive to use your DVD

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smart_Euphoria9addAuthor

Participant

Hi John,

Thank you for taking the time to reply. I do still have the original physical CS5 Master Collection discs, but unfortunately some of the discs are damaged. The existing CS5 Master Collection installation on my older Mac is still working perfectly, but I don't want to rely on the discs as a way of reinstalling the software on another machine.

That's why I'm particularly hoping to find an official Adobe download or another legitimate way of reinstalling my existing perpetual licence. Adobe's current documentation suggests that registered CS5 products may still be downloadable from an Adobe account, but unfortunately Adobe is rejecting my genuine serial when I try to register it.

I appreciate the suggestion, though, and it's useful to know that an external DVD drive might still be an option if I can get the discs to read.

\

Many thanks

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kglad

Community Expert

if you saw an invalid serial number you either made an error when entering the number OR you have the wrong installer. details:

assuming you're using a valid adobe serial number (6 groups of 4 numbers), you have a mismatch between your installation file and serial number. ie, you can have a valid serial number, but if it's for program A and your installation file is for program B, you will see an invalid serial number message.

common mismatches are language/region (eg, serial number is for western europe and installation file is eastern europe), platform (eg, serial number is for a mac and installation file is win), license type (eg, education vs enterprise vs individual). and one of the most common is using a program installation file with a suite's serial number. eg, using a cs6 suite serial number with a photoshop cs6 installation file. that won't work even though photoshop is included in that suite.

you must use the (correct) suite's installation file (and you can choose to only install one program from the suite). here's official info about that error, http://helpx.adobe.com/creative-suite/kb/error-serial-number-valid-product.html

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smart_Euphoria9addAuthor

Participant

Hi kglad,

Thank you for taking the time to reply, that's very helpful. I hadn't considered that the “invalid serial number” message might relate to a mismatch between the serial and the installer rather than the serial itself being invalid.

In my case, I still have a fully working CS5 Master Collection installation on an older Mac, which I still use a few times a week, originally installed from my physical CS5 DVD set. I checked the Adobe licensing files on that installation, and the SWIDTAG identifies the product as Adobe Creative Suite 5 Master Collection, with the unique ID MasterCollection-CS5-Mac-GM-MUL and an activation status of serialized.

So I'm reasonably confident that the serial is specifically associated with the Mac Master Collection licence.

I will investigate the installer/platform/edition point you mentioned before doing anything further. In particular, I'm trying to establish which official Mac Master Collection CS5 installer corresponds to this licence.

Thanks again for pointing me in that direction — it's given me something concrete to investigate. Let me know if you have any thoughts, as it really helps to gain multi-perspectives on legacy paths. Best wishes

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kglad

Community Expert

@smart_Euphoria9add

you can also check the serial number on that mac.

(win:) http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html,

(mac:) https://mac-product-key-finder.com/

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leo.r

Community Expert

It’s highly unlikely you’ll be able to do anything about it. CS5 reached end of life years ago and its activation servers are not maintained anymore. It there are ways to revive your license I’m not aware of, I’m sure others will chime in.

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smart_Euphoria9addAuthor

Participant

Hi leo.r,

Thanks for your reply, appreciated. Thank you for the information. Yes, I was aware that CS5 is now considered a legacy product and that Adobe's activation infrastructure for older applications has changed considerably.

The slightly unusual situation in my case is that I still have a completely working, activated installation of CS5 Master Collection on an older Mac, which I still use a few times per week, using the original perpetual licence. The Adobe licensing information on that installation identifies the product as MasterCollection-CS5-Mac-GM-MUL and shows it as serialized.

I'm therefore trying to find out whether there is still an official way to reinstall that existing licence on another older Mac, rather than trying to obtain or revive a licence that has already expired.

I appreciate your point that the old activation infrastructure may no longer be maintained, although, as you say, that doesn't necessarily establish that there is no other route available. Just having the installer would be great.

Thanks again for taking the time to respond, let me know if you have any more thoughts on this, as it really helps to gain multi-perspectives of the old legacy affair.

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