Device licenses incompatible with new versions?

[JustAnITGuy]

We have 500 device licenses for our school district.  I see Adobe released a new version of their software.  I also see here: Packaging apps via the Admin Console  that I cannot create a device license in the admin console.

Is this something that is going to be fixed, and if so will it be fixed quickly?  We have to pay an annual subscription for Adobe CC, as it is the only license one can now get.  The promise when going to a subscription model was rolling updates.  Without a fix to the device license model, there will be no more updates for us, which will leave us on the last (and buggy) 2018 release.

We cannot do named user for obvious reasons.  One being it would be exceptionally expensive and difficult to manage, the other is, being a school, we have users that would difficult to create individual licenses for under Adobe's own ToS.

[scawelti]

I have this concern as well. I spent 4+ hours today on the phone with adobe trying to activate and they were no help. This is very frustrating.

[___Dom___ · Accepted solution]

The CC 2019 versions of Creative Cloud do not unfortunately support device licensing. You can find more information in the following documents:

Licensing overview

Manage your Adobe Creative Cloud for education device licenses

We recommend not installing the Creative Cloud Desktop application when using device licenses to avoid possible problems related to licenses becoming deactivated and to ensure that users do not upgrade to applications which are not compatible with this type of license.

I would suggest contacting your reseller or account manager to discuss other options, or reaching out to our support team if you need assistance in returning to supported versions of the applications:

Contact Customer Care

[martinc38102340]

If so, why are you still advertising this on your website, and what is the content of the webinar scheduled for 31st October which is titled "Getting Started with Creative Cloud for Education (Device License)", and why was JPW48 told above that this would be fixed soon.  Does anyone in Adobe what is going on?

[austene57603817]

As a Educational Device licensed based customer.  There was zero communication for this sent out, Now from what I've been reading since I bought my device licenses in August. Your telling me that I cannot use your latest version of the product which I paid for already?

[davidt191088]

We are an EDU VIP Device based customer. The bad thing is not one thing has been sent out to customers, vars, Adobe support, etc. We just found out about it when we tried updating our packages for our labs and saw the popup in our CC Packager. We pay every year for this service and even with this last renewal it was difficult moving forward. Now it is per user and you pulled updates we already paid for?? Think about labs. How will anyone afford to run a lab of say 30 machines with about 6-8 users on a machine per day which would cost 6-8 times what we are paying. 25 a year per user is insane! I honestly feel taken on the entire sale from last year. We got on the Cloud VIP subscription service and you pull the rug out from countless customers without any notice what so ever. Very bad business ethic in my opinion. Even the vendors selling the subscription haven't heard anything so obviously this is a tight lipped change thrown at us.

[spoynter42]

Ditto.  We just renewed 12 device licenses for a computer lab and purchased 17 more for a new lab going online.  We were not informed by either the vendor or Adobe that device licenses wouldn't be supported beyond CC 2018.  I have professors wanting the 2019 version of the apps in this new showcase lab.  Adobe's answer here is unacceptable!

[carlsunder01]

I just got off the phone with our Adobe rep at CDW.  They confirmed that at this time the CC2019 license for our devices is not available.  HOWEVER...  They DID tell me that it will be coming.  No confirmation on a date. I asked it several times and in several different ways to ensure that we were talking the same language...  Our device-licensed based devices WILL be able to run the CC2019 apps...  Just not at this time.

I'm wanting to believe them, but it's concerning when the official response in the thread above is technically saying the opposite (that CC2019 does not support device based licenses). If the Adobe rep at CDW is correct, then Dominic Watkins​ answer above should be amended to say that support WILL be coming rather than freaking us all out thinking device licensing is done.

[Helton_Bastos_IFMT]

But it NEVER came!

[danielg73601000]

We're dealing with this problem as well after half of our device license users updated to 2019. I just called Adobe support about this one (800-685-3570), their response was as clear as mud. Basically, I got the standard "hedging" response from them that many others are getting, with no commitment to anything either way.

They told me that they have no idea if or when device licensing support will be added, but that they are getting a LOT of calls about it (surprise, surprise). They (support) have requested with the engineering dept that the support be added, whatever that means. For now, I'm told we will have to stick with 2018 and downgrade those users, which we know already. I have no idea WHAT we're supposed to do for those that opened and saved projects with 2019 before realizing they were on a trial license -- those projects will now no longer open in the 2018 versions after being downgraded. I'm told we can purchase named licenses if we want access to 2019 apps for now.

In other words, we can pay double for a license we don't/shouldn't need and then manually manage numerous generic Adobe ID's for general use machines with no specific assigned user.

I DID get confirmation that they will continue to sell device licenses with no plans to kill those off. This would seem to imply that 2019+ will eventually receive support for device licensing, unless they just plan for us to use 2018 for ever and ever.

I sure hope this will be fixed soon, because I honestly do not understand how we're expected to managed deployment for machines with no assigned user without manually walking around and logging into the CC app by hand with various generic Adobe IDs... This cannot possibly be the new normal for their enterprise licensing, so I'm really hoping Adobe clears this ridiculous nonsense up for us sooner rather than later.