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I had CS6 on another machine (it must have been a second) but I wiped the machine and sold it.
I went to install on my current machine and it is telling me that I cannot install on more than one machine.
The support agent said I had to deactivate it. They said they cannot do anything, althought I know they have done this in the past. Infact I think you could self deactivate from web portal.
this is such a basic common feature that you get with laods off companies. Sky, Netflix etc all allow users to activate and deactivate on variuos devices.
Why has Adobe removed this feature. I only use the software very rarely to do bulk image processing and it is great. (a feature not available on the elements version) we can not justify paying a monthly fee for something we use so infrequent. So i will be gutted is Adobe is stealing the rights to use the software.
It still works peferectly well, they are just taking access away from something I have bought.
Is there any solution?
Scott
Doesn'tt seem to be any known solutions then. However strangly after complaining to Adobe, and closing the app and re-opened it and mysteriously it seems to be activated! Unless this is temp. where there once was an activate button option it now says "de-activate"
Just to close this off. I ask to be passed through to complaints, but got two different sales people who tried to sell me upgrades. Finally a person arranged a manager to call back. The manager give me new information that apparently I had resinstalled the software 4 times over the 12 years and if it had of been just two they would have been able to help. I am not sure I understood the rationale for this. I explained clearly the full situation and the manager did listen carefully and I beleive u
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Scott, thanks for posting your question on managing your activations to this public discussion forum.
If you are receiving the message that you have exceeded your amount of allowable activations, then you will need to deactivate the software on the computer where it was previously installed on. Since you sold that computer, you will not be able to deactivate the software to reclaim the activation. Please see https://adobe.ly/4gdqeZP for additional information on managing the activations included with your purchase of Creative Suite 6. ^JW
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Doesn'tt seem to be any known solutions then. However strangly after complaining to Adobe, and closing the app and re-opened it and mysteriously it seems to be activated! Unless this is temp. where there once was an activate button option it now says "de-activate"
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The activation servers are still available, Scott. If you have activations remaining, you can use the software. Make sure to read the information in https://adobe.ly/3PIMXSU thoroughly for a better understanding of how to manage and use any remaining activations for Creative Suite 6 in 2025. ^JW
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It's good that your activation is now working... but, as you have discovered, that may not be true in the future... if your computer ever dies, without being able to de-activate, you will most likely not be able to activate again
Hardware crashes or virus infections or simple software problems happen, so you should buy AND USE software to make a full backup of your hard drive to an external USB hard drive... plus, making step-by-step backups during a new setup or major program addition makes it easy to go back a step if something doesn't work... I have had to do this once when a program install didn't work properly (a different program, not Adobe) and I had to do a restore due to my drive being SO messed up that I couldn't even uninstall the bad program
.
This backup and then restore is, of course, only to the same computer with a new drive (or the same drive as long as you don't mind writing over everything) since doing a restore to a new computer requires extra steps due to Windows and many programs having activation information that is keyed to your hardware (which is why Windows will force you to RE-Activate if you change very much hardware)
.
The product I bought and use is at http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/image-for-linux.htm
Note that I get NO benefit if you buy the program, I only use it and like what it does
Version 3+ allows restoring to a larger drive and expanding the partition to fit
.
Image runs off of a bootable CD or USB Flash Drive via Linux (the Zip you download includes a program to make the CD or USB, the program uses less than 1Gig) and it reads EVERYTHING on the drive, even the hidden registration information, so everything is restored when needed... and you may not only restore the image over a messed up install, you may restore to a brand new drive in case of a hardware crash, and not have to re-install anything
.
I do a backup a couple times a year to a second internal drive... the backup of my C drive is 'about' 45Gig in one file... depending on the space used on your C drive you should be able to do a backup to a USB flash drive that has the capacity... 128Gig flash drives don't cost a lot
.
I have actually done this restore one time... when a program I bought had a faulty installer that totally mangled the Windows registry... I had done a restore before installing the bad program so I did not lose anything when I had to do the restore
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I am not sure it is 100% working or just a quirk. But the help person on the adobe chat confirmed from there side that the activation was not possible. I asked to speak to a supervisor, but ran out of time. I honestly think they did something there side. Thanks for the back devices. we have all the data backed up to the cloud and synced to synology drives. All our other software is fully back restorable. We use some auto deployment software, so a full install only takes around 2hours. Its the random programs like the CS6 that causes the problems. We had no problem with adobe until recently. I think they are trying to push people to the creative cloud. 90% of our design work is dones by professional (who many use adobe products) so we do get charged by them for thier running costs, but we just can't afford the upgrades for our small charity team and we don't even have a designer.
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This is a duplicate post, posted minutes after posting in this thread:
https://community.adobe.com/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/24585593
Jane
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Actually - the post in the other thread was me asking an old post thread if the orginal person got it solved. It was an old thread and I didnt know of the orginal user would answer. Thankfully there are some helpful people out there that do reply rather than try to criticise new users to the forums. Doesnt make you feel very welcome.
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I thought it was - When I started the program an hour ago in loaded back in and in the help window I had the option to deactive. I did a little bit of work and then saved a few file. But when I restarted there, it came back up to activate with the message of the limit reached. Confusing. Now the deactivate button is greyed out again.
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yes, there's not much wiggle room to deactivating. the process isn't flexible.
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By @scott24585593efx0The support agent said I had to deactivate it. They said they cannot do anything, althought I know they have done this in the past. Infact I think you could self deactivate from web portal.
===========
The online account allows remote deactivation of Creative Cloud products. But it won't help you with legacy Creative Suite Apps. You must deactivate those from the installed device.
Unfortunately, the aging activation servers are 13-years-old and no longer fully functional. That's a risk you take with unsupported products. Eventually, they wear out.
When the time comes to find a replacement, you have lots of options that are supported.
MODERN OPTIONS:
==============
FREE Acrobat Reader -- view, comment, print & sign PDF.
https://www.adobe.com/acrobat/pdf-reader.html
Paid Acrobat Pro -- the complete solution for creating and saving PDF.
https://www.adobe.com/acrobat/acrobat-pro.html
Photoshop Elements or Premiere Elements (3 year license, no subscription needed).
https://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop-elements.html
Creative Cloud Photography Plan (approx $10/month for 12 months). Includes the following:
- Photoshop CC and Photoshop on iPad
- Camera Raw
- Lightroom on desktop, mobile and the web
- Lightroom Classic
- Portfolio website + hosting
- Adobe Express (free starter plan)
- Bridge
- 20 GB cloud storage (upgradable to 1 TB).
https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/photography.html
Creative Cloud Bundles & Single App Plans for mobile, web & desktops
https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/plans.html
Good luck.
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Its a pity as it is still a very good program. If I had known the issue I would have made sure I diactivated it. I know the new versions probably do alot more, but we only used a very small part of the program. CS6 had everything we needed to put logos on multilple photos of children we sponsor, and put reference codes from Excel etc. Looks like we have lost it.
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By @scott24585593efx0CS6 had everything we needed to put logos on multilple photos of children we sponsor...
=============
If you're a non-profit with 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status, Adobe partners with TechSoup to give generous discounts to non-profit organizations.
https://www.techsoup.org/adobe
Hope that helps.
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We use tech soup - in fact I bought the CS6 through them year ago and we buy adobe elements (photoshop and premier) through them, which is why we only use the CS6 for one or two features (batch processing and merging date from Excel). However they only offer the deal on the full quite and the cost of paying the monthly subscription for 12 months ( works out at £300-£400 a year. we paid that for CS6 as a one off) When you use it for 2 week each year, means it would be cheaper to pay someone external. For a big charity that has a media team its amazing offer. it really is, but we have 6 people on our team. No designers.
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Just to close this off. I ask to be passed through to complaints, but got two different sales people who tried to sell me upgrades. Finally a person arranged a manager to call back. The manager give me new information that apparently I had resinstalled the software 4 times over the 12 years and if it had of been just two they would have been able to help. I am not sure I understood the rationale for this. I explained clearly the full situation and the manager did listen carefully and I beleive understood where I came from. However it would seem that although she sympathised with the postion, it seems she had no options to support me. They did offer me six months free subscription for photoshop and I am now on the charity discount for this, which comes to around £180 a year, however I have lost all my access to the other products. (less used but they where a good saftey net to have)
Very frustrating how inflexible the exit plan is on this. But we are where we are. Sadly it seems that the push is to kill of CS6.
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with an active subscription to a current photoshop, you may be able to use your ps cs6. try it.
often the cs6 license is subsumed by cc. i know that's not satisfactory because if/when the cc subscription ends, the usage of cs6 will end.
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Will give it a go
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let us know..
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Didn't work. Still shows the countdown for 30 days and doesn't activiate.
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AFTER obtaining your cc subscription:
when installing cs6 or trying to activate cs6, were you asked to sign in?
if so, did you use the same adobe id as the one used to subscribe?
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No, I dont think the CS6 is built for a log in activation. you are asked to put in the seriel. But no log in required.
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adobr changed the activation procedure.
https://helpx.adobe.com/x-productkb/global/reactivate-older-apps.html