license for Pro's / Fair usage

[jgbr00]

Hello

I have a OSX Machine, and a Windows machine on my desktop and sometimes need to work on either or both. On top of this i travel alot.

I need to install say

Creative cloud Photoshop cs6 on the Mac and Windows machine but the odd time, have it on my laptop (mac) when im out of office.

How would or could licencing work for this, do i constantly have to deactive and reactivate?

Thanks

[John Waller]

Creative Cloud apps are licensed for installation and activation on up to 2 computers at any one time.

Unlike perpetual licenses, this is a dual platform license, so you can install and activate on Win/Win, Mac/Mac or (in your case) Win/Mac.

So, most of the time there would be no issue.

When you're out of the office on the road, you'd deactivate one of the office licenses and activate the laptop license. Then switch back when you return.

[jgbr00]

So it sounds like running it on the Desktop Windows and Mac system is fine, its just when on the road (my laptop being another mac) that I will have to deactive the desktop mac and activate that and ping pong between the two?

[Trilo Byte]

That's a good question.  I have two Macs (Mac Pro desktop plus MacBook Pro laptop) that I would like to use Creative Cloud on, both machines run OSX and also have a bootcamp partition running Windows 7.  That would be a total of 4 installations, but only two different pieces of hardware (and still only just me using it).  Would that be possible?

[John Waller]

Don't have a defintive answer to that one. You'd have to talk to Adobe.

However, I suspect you'd need one activation per operating system (= 2 licenses with 2 activations per license).

[Lynda-S]

This info may be incorrect about what I am going to say so verify with Adobe. -- I remember reading something somewhere that with CS5 you could only deactivate and reactivate so many times before you would run into issues, meaning: you could not reactivate the software after a certain point. I do not know if that is 1) true 2) still applies 3) if it was a lifetime count or a per month thing. Again Adobe would need to verify this information but may be worth mentioning here.

[Manish-Sharma]

Hmmm...lot of confusion, let me put it this way...

Adobe has been following the policy of the 2 activation , which means you can install the software on 2 machine but cannot use them at the same time.Now earlier there was no creative cloud hence the software were platform dependent means either they could be on Mac or Windows , so If you have Adobe software for Windows then you can install it on 2 windows machine only.

Untill CS5 there was the limitation on the no. of time you deactivate and reactivate , if I remember correctly I think 20 times not sure , but with CS5 and CS5.5 this particular limitation was removed.

The concept remain the same with the CS6 as well , If you have the perpeptual license then you will get the 2 activation , but this would be platform dependent means wither you have it on 2 Windows machine or 2 Mac machine , the reason being you get one serial number and one kind of installation media.

     But with Creative cloud , you get the 2 activation same as earlier but it is not platform dependent , which means you can have it on 2 Windows or 2 Mac or One Windows and One Mac , serial number are affiliated with your Adobe ID in Creative Cloud.

To know more :-

        http://www.adobe.com/products/activation/

        http://www.adobe.com/ap/activation/faq.html

Ahh..I missed one question in which it was asked what if there is Dual Boot system , in this case it would depend upon your installation , if you have installed the software on both the boot drive then it will be counted as 2 activation. This is something which not realted to Activation but more of EULA.

Check :- http://helpx.adobe.com/x-productkb/policy-pricing/end-user-license-agreements-faq.html   , which clearly answer this section

[Ken G. Rice]

@Manish_1988 thanks for the information.

The 20 times activation/deactivation limit has been removed. You can read Eric Wilde's blog post here http://blogs.adobe.com/oobe/2010/01/removing_deactivation_limit.html.

[Manish-Sharma]

Yes, Ken ,but I have written the same think read last line of 2nd Para..

Where I wrote

"Untill CS5 there was the limitation on the no. of time you deactivate and reactivate , if I remember correctly I think 20 times not sure , but with CS5 and CS5.5 this particular limitation was removed."

BTW thanks for the link...

[Ken G. Rice]

@Manish_1988 - Thanks again. I just wanted to chime in as an Adobe employee for Lynda's sake (and anyone else who reads this post) and provide the Adobe blog post about the change.

[John Waller]

So Ken,

Going back to the original question:

If the OP has one Windows computer and one Mac computer (both in the office) with a laptop being occasionally used on the road, there would be no issue with continually activating/reactivating CS6 between one office computer and the laptop (while out on the road) over many years?

[Ken G. Rice]

@John - There should not be an issue doing this.

[ChristophvS]

To be able to use the same licence either on windows or on mac is one of the great good news coming with creative cloud and one reason I subscribed.

I hope also that adobe will rethink the old "backup computer" policy.

I mean: what difference those it make for adobe, if I buy an expensive mac pro with a max of cores and memory to be able to render a video in the backrground while working with indesign on the dvd cover that I will use to ditribute it or do the same by rendering on one mac mini and designing on my macbook pro? It's still one and only one user.

Apples views about flash are perhaps stupid but there licensing model for several computers makes sens. Adobe could also reconsider some rules "that always were like that" in view of the new reality of cloud computing.

[jgbr00]

I will report back on how that goes! I hope its not too painful to do this activate and deactive thing, Its not idea as sometimes you want to grab your laptop and run sort of thing.

Who do i contact in adobe if if i mess it up.

Its only really because in my development suit i use both operating systems and obviously sometimes need to travel away to present things etc.

[David__B]

I'm moving this thread over to our download/installation forum.

For general Creative Cloud Membership questions, here is the FAQ link:

http://www.adobe.com/products/creativecloud/faq.html

-Dave