Adobe Creative Cloud Activation/Deactivation Issues

[DMH79]

The current way to activate and deactivate devices is a fairly frustrating experience. Especailly when you have more than 2 devices. With Creative Cloud, there needs to be a way to activate or deactivate a device remotely. I know that currently only 2 devices can be activated within each Creative Cloud account at once. That's okay. But if the user has 3 computers (one of which is a laptop) and they are out of the office and need to use the 3rd device (the laptop) there is no way currenly (as far as I know) to deactivate one of the two office devices in order to activate the 3rd device (the laptop). Am I mistaken or is there a better way to manage your Creative Cloud activations and deactivations? Is this feature going to be available to users in the future?

What would be ideal is if one could log onto their Adobe Creative Cloud account and see a list of their devices (which they've previously named) right there and simply activate and deactivate their devices whenever they need to. That way, you can be out of the office and not be stuck with no way to remotely activate another device on your account.

Is there any hope for this?

[mkarrow]

I disagree Gtunglaub. The original post was about deactivating single devices, not both of them. My use case is, I'm sitting at work trying to use my work laptop (third device), worrying what might happen if I force my personal laptop at home to sign out, when it definitely has Photoshop open with images I really hope are saved. The second computer, on the other hand, has no adobe products open and can be safely signed out.

I'd really like to sign -just- that computer out.

[queenjac]

I agree; Gtunglaub may have misunderstood or failed to read OP. Every other subscription site I use offer this type of remote activation/deactivation. The only reason I even found this post is because my husband's tablet was stolen from my son's dorm room; of course one that's signed-in on CC. Now the ONLY option available to us is to overload the number activations by installing cc on 2 other computers!  What if we ONLY have ONE ADDITIONAL computer?!

ADOBE IS REALLY BEHIND THE CURVE ON THIS FEATURE/ISSUE!!!

Thankfully, we do have more than 1 additional computer. HOWEVER, WE MUST NOT ONLY TAKE THE TIME TO INSTALL CC AND SIGN IN ON 2 OTHER DEVICES, WE MUST CHANGE OUR PW BECAUSE POTENTIALLY THE THESE THIEF(VES) OR SOME SUBSEQUENT PERSON(S) COULD HAVE THE MEANS TO CRACK PASSWORDS OR USE SOME PASSWORD RECOVERY SOFTWARE.

IT IS JUST ALL ONE HUGE AND UNNECESSARY HEADACHE TO HAVE TO DEAL WITH IN THE AFTERMATH OF YOUR KID'S DORM BEING BURGLARIZED!!!

This is the FIRST time ANY one in my family has EVER had their residence BURGLARIZED. This thief(ves) even took our son's NCAA trophy (Final Four)!!!

IT IS UNACCEPTABLE THAT I CANNOT GO ONLINE SIGN INTO CC, DEACTIVATE/BLOCK THIS DEVICE FOREVER, CHANGE MY PW AND BE DONE WITH THIS PART! THE TIME IT'S GOING TO TAKE US TO INSTALL AND LOGON TWICE COULD AND SHOULD CERTAINLY BE BETTER SPENT!

[richardault]

Please Adobe, implement this feature.  Or alternately increase the licensed machine count for a single account to 3 machines.  Please please please.  I know I am far from alone in this regard.  Thanks in advance for your consideration.

[Hal Jalikakik]

Agree 100%

Microsoft's model is more of a family sharing type thing, and we don't expect Adobe to allow us to invite other people, but we should be allowed a similar model.

Microsoft Gives You:

5 mac installs

5 pc installs

5 smartphone

5 tablet

5 cloud drives

and a bunch of other stuff.  If Adobe did something like 3 computers of any kind, 1 phone and 2 tablets, I would be satisfied.  It is simply no longer uncommon to have 3 computers.  1 supercomputer desktop at work, a home iMac or family computer and a laptop.  This should be the standard.

Please Adobe.  If you can't do the above, at least make it easy to log out where and when we want.

[CMusson3]

Agree 100%

Flexible device management on the fly (whilst keeping the existing limits if this isn't possible to change) would really make CC a much better user experience and remove a lot of frustration for those with multiple devices.

In truth I would even be willing to pay an additional fee per active install if that's what it took to increase flexibility.

Really hope you could explore these options for the creative userbase

[infotechstudio]

Can I just chip on this subject of multiple machines. I understand the 2 machine rule and have no issue with it apart from I have 3 machines and I want to have my Creative Cloud files synced across all 3 machines but I can't, even if I buy another license because the other license will be against another email address/account so they work seamlessly. I'd like the option to just pay 50% extra for each machine I want to use against the same account. At the moment I have to pay for 2 full CC subscriptions and yet the 3rd machine is not linked. It's a proper pain the backside.

[Rajashree Bhattacharya]

Hi Jeff,

I got your point, shall convey this issue to the concerned team.

Regards

Rajashree

[andrewnoel]

*Bump - Please advise, need to use CC on a new computer but don't want to deactivate the old ones. What a pain.

[Alanairedale]

If the system needs to have a computer on line to know when it is active, why couldn't you simply have a rule that only one computer can be active at any time (which is in fact the rule), and Adobe would know that from the sign-on.   In other words, suppose I have CC loaded on two desktops in two locations.  One desktop in this scenario is always off and one is on.  If I shut down the one that is on and go on a trip and I want to use CC on a Macbook, and sign on, wouldn't the Adobe system allow that because there is only one sign on?   What am I missing?

[Rajashree Bhattacharya]

Hi Andy,

The activation count is 2 of CC & it has been activated two times, I am sorry that you need to deactivate CC from one of the machine to activate it on 3rd computer.

Regards

Rajashree

[andrewnoel]

But you can't just deactivate one you have to deactivate all of them. Also I've been seeing problems when activating/deactivating - in the middle of a job i'm not willing to take the risk of being locked out of my software.

[blcopeland]

Just got a smaller 2nd Wacom tablet as my 3rd device and I'm running into this activate/deactivate mess.  This makes the software almost unusable for me.  At the very least give me a way to buy more machines on the same adobe account so I don't have to create a second email and second account and buy a second full-price solution so I can travel easier.  Quite frankly this makes me want to find alternatives to your software. 

I'm not using them simultaneously but traveling now requires me to deactivate and reactivate from my desktop/tablet combo to my laptop/tablet combo.  Then when I get home I have to go back and when it has issues it is a complete cluster to get it sorted out.  Even if you offered me a way to add more computers at a reasonable price I'd be happy but people have more than 2 devices these days.  Please quit treating me like I'm trying to steal software and making life tough on your paying customers.

[digitalninja02]

I've never activated the software on more than one machine. I'm now attempting to activate on a second machine but can not identify the "ghost" machine that Adobe claims I've activated on. As far as I'm concerned, this is the same as my Adobe account being hacked. Ridiculous that a list of machine types and their names are not displayed within my Adobe account profile.

[8rik]

To Adobe: I just want to deactivate the installation on a laptop that was stolen.  Please don't require me to call someone in customer service, or have to install on a 3rd device (assuming I have one) in order to deactivate all - let me manage activated installations myself.

Thanks.

[KevinDeam]

Hello All,

I just want to share that Adobe has implemented a self service deactivation mechanism as of a few weeks

If you don't have access to the previous computer on which you installed Creative Cloud—whether it was lost, was stolen, crashed, or locked— or are are unable to deactivate your software you can deactivate the apps from your accounts page on adobe.com.

Sign in to the Adobe accounts page with your Adobe ID. Under Plans & Products, click Manage plan. Under Activated devices, click the x next to your previous device.

For more detailed instructions, see Deactivate a device.

If you need help, have your Adobe ID ready, and then contact Adobe

Hope this is a usefull addition for you guys

-Kevin  

[alexander_rodriguez]

That is wonderful. I tried to deactivate a device and that worked but my other device does not want to activate and says it is still on a trial base. Is this normal?

[MMI Agency]

This is not even an option on my account. I have access to the master administrator and user accounts. There is not an option on either one as far as I can tell. What am I missing?

[bens88590905]

Awesome work but there are some much needed improvements:

• The 'Manage activated devices' link from the CC app should go to the 'Manage activated devices' page on the website
• There should be a 'Manage activated devices' area on the main 'Plans & Products' page (which is where the CC app link dumps you)
• Clicking 'Manage Plan' first makes no sense as we don't want to manage our plan, we want to manage our devices

A bit of context, I have a workstation at work, a workstation at home and a laptop for travelling. Whenever I travel, I need to deactivate/reactivate licenses.

This feature is a life saver, I just wish it was more obvious and in an area that makes sense. It's painful wasting time searching and reading forum posts because stuff isn't organsied or links go to the wrong place - sorry!

Cheers

Ben

[alisters9008592]

Hi - I have just found this thread, as I have a desktop and a laptop which up till now have both been on my CC licence. However, I have just bought a tablet, and am trying to explore how I can use it.

It seems this thread has been going nearly three years, with promises from Adobe staff that the issue will be brought to the attention of the right department. But after all this time, still nothing has changed.

Come on Adobe! With the proliferation of tablets, phones etc, there are going to be more and more people who want to be able to use their software on more than 2 devices at different times. Please give us an option to do this!

[nickwilsdon]

Hi Adobe,

I'm running into this issue. Simply tried to authenticate on my tablet but appears that I need to call customer services. Please don't put us through that. Recent UK survey in the Guardian pointed out that the average household in UK has 7.4 devices now (2015), I imagine the US is in a similar position. Limiting the licence to 2 devices is a dated approach, especially for your tech-savvy professional audience. If you need the business case from your side, this issue impacts customer satisfaction and increases your support costs.

If you can't give more licencing, then consider some of the options users have suggested here in terms of better authentication management or the ability to purchase add-ons.

Thanks

[davel49727403]

One more voice of frustration.

Requiring us to activate devices but then not be able to see and manage which devices are activated is a seriously awful user experience.

Office 365 has it right:

[David__B · Accepted solution]

This behavior has improved for Adobe as well. From the account management page a user can remotely deactivate specific devices. See this article showing the workflow: Sign in and sign out to activate Creative Cloud apps

[different_Raindrop15C3]

Hi David,

how about latin american users? We have a different account manager page, there is no such option to deactivate devices.

[chrispetrifoxcarolina]

As a CC for Teams member, I do not see this page in my profile.

[technologys42236252]

I administer CC for (my) Teams, and I cannot see  the device management interface whether I login as a normal team member or admin account.