Fireworks Trial Notice

[davidallenhampton]

I encountered the pop up notice that my trial version of Fireworks CS6 was expiring and was prompted to buy it, license it or continue the trial.  This was concerning because I had never entered a trial of Fireworks and it was included in my annual all-apps package from Adobe.  By the way I have the SOLUTION, but let me digress for a moment.  If you ever expect to get help from Adobe's so-called technical experts via chat or phone...FORGET IT!  They are all from India, Pakistan, Indonesia...who knows, but one thing is certain they do not know much of anything.  Much to my regret I lost my temper during a chat yesterday and used many foul words which I won't repeat here.  The experience lasted the good part of an hour through four different CSRs with the bottom line being they had no answer to my problem and that I should try phoning Adobe, which I did and it was even worse there until I got cut off.  I have been toying with dropping my Adobe subscription altogether since I also use Corel for graphics (better and more intuitive that Photoshop/Illustrator) and Dreamweaver has become a sorry substitute for web development after Macromedia sold out.  I may still yet.  Anyway, what you have all been waiting for...the answer is to simply click on "License this Software" and Fireworks will be validated with your email address on file and the "trial box" will go away.  It's amazing to me that nobody at Adobe knew how to suggest this simple solution, or why they could not come up with another option to select on the "trial box" that doesn't look like you have to buy something you have already paid for.  Anyway, I've had my vent, thank you for your patience and I hope someone out there might be helped by this message.

[Paul-M]

Hello, do this:

1) Click the 'License This Software' button

2) If prompted to sign in, click the sign in button

3) you may be automatically signed in or have to enter your adobe login

This should activate the software again providing you have a full or student/teacher license ......

[Nancy OShea]

Fireworks is discontinued  & unsupported.  Adobe Customer Care Agents cannot help you with discontinued software. 

Unlike Customer Care agents who have little hands-on experience with the software, I'm a fellow product user and a long-time forum volunteer.  What I'm learning from other users in other product forums is that Creative Cloud desktop app and the legacy Creative Suite software manager do not play nice together.  It has been recommended that we dedicate our machine to either Creative Cloud or Creative Suite but not both.   As long as you have an older supporting OS and a paid All Apps plan to Creative Cloud, Fireworks should work for you.

The Adobe Cleaner tool is useful for removing old Adobe program files -- trial versions, Flash players, Acrobat Readers, Extension Managers, Toolkits, etc...   Then do a clean install of the latest Creative Cloud desktop app followed by your other CC software. 

Also refer to this help article

https://helpx.adobe.com/manage-account/kb/stop-creative-cloud-trial-mode-after-purchase.html

Post back if you have any questions.

[Paul-M · Accepted solution]

You do not need to use the adobe cleaner tool, follow the steps below: ...

1) Click the 'License This Software' button

2) If prompted to sign in, click the sign in button

3) you may be automatically signed in or have to enter your adobe login

This should activate the software again providing you have a full or student/teacher Adobe Creative Cloud subscription/license ......

Ive been using Fireworks since v3 and still use it, I've had exactly the same issue on two or three occassions and the above steps took just a few seconds and removed the nag trial software message and reactivated the software.

[Sigge Lindhe]

Hello,

Thanks for the suggestion. However, in my case I get a popup demanding a Serial Number when clicking "License this software" and then signing in.

The little (i) gives me the tip to look for the licensing number on http://licensing.adobe.com, but when going there it will not accept the "Company or school account" button when trying to log in, only the "Personal account" option is supported. Which does not help me much when I have a company SaS plan.

If I go to my Adobe account on Adobe.com and look at my plan, there is nothing mentioned about serial numbers anywhere.

I don't see this way working in my case.

[Nancy OShea]

Contact your organization's IT dept for assistance.

[Paul-M]

Do you have a full or student/teacher Creative Cloud subscription? Is it an individual or team license?

Try this:

1) Log out of the Creative Cloud app

2) Launch Fireworks, you should be prompted to login

3) Make sure you login with the correct credantials associated with your Creative Cloud subscription

4) If you see a 'license this software' button click it.

[thijs_verhees]

Hi Paul and then it will ask 4 a license key.... and that I do'n have any more.

But in my creative cloud app it is still there, but doesn't work anymore

[Nancy OShea]

Try installing Muse & launching it.  Some users claim that Muse gets them beyond the Fireworks licensing prompt.

[Brian5EB8]

Nancy. Thank you so much for being such a strong contributor... The MUSE installation and launching has seem to solve my Fireworks requiring a license key.

[Nancy OShea]

Great news, Brian!  Glad to hear it worked for you. 🙂

[Paul-M]

Hi Brian - I'm not sure you still need to perform that tedious Muse workaround .... Adobe pushed an update that seemd to fix the licensing issue people were having ..... I would (a) make sure you have the latest version of the Creative Cloud app (b) If Fireworks prompts with a trial window and a 'license this sofware' button, click the license this software button.

If your company has a multi-license subscription I would report the issue to Adobe support...

[ElDuderino1971]

This worked for me when nothing else did.  THANK YOU! 

[JanFW]

Not Working!

[troyh41387938]

Yes!! That totally worked for me. Long live Fireworks!!

[Paul-M]

It looks like you are a Windows user? This has worked for a lot of people:

1) Uninstall Fireworks and reboot your machine

2) Download an offline Fireworks installer from here **IMPORTANT** you must visit this page first and login to your Adobe account, they are links to official Adobe installers and you need to set an Adobe cookie before downloading...

3) Install Fireworks with the offline installer and **IMPORTANT** do NOT launch Fireworks for now.

4) Locate the following file C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Adobe\OOBE\PDApp\core\PDapp.exe  => right click => properties=> compatibility tab => check the box  'run this program as an administrator' => click OK button

5) Now locate C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Adobe Fireworks CS6\Fireworks.exe => right click => properties => compatability tab and **IMPORTANT**  ensure 'run this program as an administrator is NOT checked.

[thijs_verhees]

Paul your cheat worked great! Thanks.

But.... afer restarting my computer (W10).... same problem again.

What is the underlying problem here?

[Paul-M]

The seems to be an issue since some recent Windows 10 Update. I'm afraid we're on our own to found our own solutions, Adobe won't provide any worthwhuile assistance.

Maybe try renaming the following folder C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Adobe\OOBE and then download and install the Adobe Application Manager from here ....

There is another weird workaround that involves installing Muse, if you search the Fireworks forum for Muse I'm sure you'll find a few recent relevant posts.

[JmanPHXaz]

Yeah, the original workaround doesn't even work anymore (Compatibility Settings and running as admin on one)  It suddenly stopped working again with the last week.  Won't even launch the app normally now.  So I did the uninstall and download the offline installer.  That worked for literally one launch.  I didn't even reboot the machine but left it running all night.  And this morning when I tried to launch Fireworks CS6 again, it was back to the same problem... not launching at all.  The program only starts up if you "Run as Administrator" and then you get the licensing bug, requesting a serial number.

Since the software is coming up on 10 years out since it's last version, I'd petition Adobe to just remove the licensing period.  There are a few faithful souls like myself that still love Fireworks over the heavier Photoshop... and i'd love to continue using it.  I don't care about new features, I just want what I've got.

This wouldn't be so bad if you could open a fw.png file in Photoshop or Illustrator and keep its layers.  Then at least we would still have our assets to play around with.  But as it stands now, all our fw work is lost forever unless we can get CS6 to work again.

[Nancy OShea]

I think it's safe to say that FW is on life support and everyone should have an exit strategy to migrate their projects to new graphics software.

OPTION #1:

Try installing Muse -- another discontinued CC app.  Launch it and see if that gets you beyond the FW licensing prompt.

OPTION #2:

Use online PhotoPea to convert layered PNG files to PSDs.

https://www.photopea.com/

That's all I can suggest.  Good luck!

[Paul-M]

Did you try installing Fireworks with an offline installer?

[JmanPHXaz]

I've tried the offline installer and literally get it to run once.  Reboot the computer and Fireworks is dead again.  If I uninstall it, and then re-install from the offline installer again, it boots back up again.  But that's a lot of work to get Fireworks back for another go.

I even though maybe the Creative Cloud software is attempting to "auto update" Fireworks in some way... so I disabled all the automatic updates in Creative Cloud's setting, but that didn't help.  It still is unloadable after the first successful launch.

[thijs_verhees]

Why o why doesnt A. make it "free" for those who have paid 4 it?

If you don't want to support it, but people have paid 4 it, let them use it!

Or introduce a succesive product.

But don't handle customers this way, thats bad 4 business!

[Nancy OShea]

@thijs_verhees,

Yes and making something available for FREE doesn't mean it will fit your system.  😉

The programmers stopped working on FW almost a decade ago.  For a computer program, that's a very, very long time with no updates.  Since 2012,  how many times has your computer OS updated?  Too many times to count, right?   New machine + old software = problems.

ADOBE TOOLS:

- Illustrator CC: https://www.adobe.com/products/illustrator.html

- Photoshop Elements: https://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop-elements.html

- Photoshop CC: https://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop.html

OTHER TOOLS (raster & vector):

- Affinity Photo & Affinity Designer: https://affinity.serif.com

- CorelDRAW Graphics Suite: https://www.coreldraw.com/

- GIMP: https://www.gimp.org/

- Gravit Designer: https://www.designer.io/en/

- Inkscape: https://inkscape.org/

- Krita: https://krita.org/

- Paint.NET: https://www.getpaint.net/

- PaintShop Pro: https://www.paintshoppro.com/

- PhotoPea: https://www.photopea.com/

- Photo Pos Pro: https://www.photopos.com/PPP3_BS/Default.aspx

- Pixlr: https://pixlr.com/

- Vctr: https://vectr.com/

[Paul-M]

Fireworks works fine on Windows its the licensing software that's the problem.