Is there a way to install Fireworks in 2025?

[AskJoeTV]

I haven't used Fireworks in quite a few years, and it's frustrating because I have a lot of .FW files that I want to use from time to time.

What frustrates me is that the icon is still on my computer, and I can't run it because it says I need to activate it, but it won't activate because it says I reached my limit, which is wrong.  I don't have any devices that use it right now and there is no way to remove whatever older devices are on my account.

I can only assume the activation servers are no longer available, but if that's the case, they shoud've made some prevision to bypass that activation for those who paid for the product.

Meanwhile, the AI Chat bot is useless and it says it doesn't see any active subscriptions on my account, which is half right.  I have about 9 paid "perptetual" licenses in my account, which is before there ever were subscriptions.

[rayek.elfin]

No need anymore to install Fireworks to convert .FW files to another file format. Photopea reads and opens native Fireworks files, which can then be saved as PSD files (for example).

https://www.photopea.com/

[AskJoeTV]

Thanks for sharing that link.  I never heard of it before and it looks pretty interesting.

Thankfully, I just discovered that although Adobe doesn't seem to let you activate the CS6 version because it doesn't let you deactivate older devices (which in my case are computers I no longer own), they do let you install CS4, because it was made before they required you to activate by logging into an Adobe Account.

It's frustrating that they don't have a way to fix the problem with CS6, but at least I figured out a way to run CS4, which is better than nothing.

For what it's worth, I understand why software companies eventually stop supporting older programs, but I think they should at least allow customers to continue to use them.  All they need to do is fix the activation program so that customers can continue to add and remove devices so they can continue to use the software they already paid for.

[rayek.elfin]

I do agree - the original license of CS6 was supposed to be a perpetual license.

I feel it is also important from a historical point of view to preserve older versions of software. Ironically enough the only 'dependable' method to achieve this goal has been to rely on cracked versions (as seen on the Internet Archive and other misc software archives).

I myself run a cracked portable version of Fireworks to maintain access to older FW files (and yes: I own a licensed copy of CS6). In cases like these my opinion is that I have ethics no my side to justify using a cracked version.

[pauln35504360]

Can you share where you got the cracked version from please

[rayek.elfin]

Sorry, I can't do that. It's easy enough to do your own Google or DuckDuckGo search.

[Nancy OShea · Accepted solution]

DO NOT download untrusted software. The risk of malware is too great and could cause irreparable harm to your computer or worse, total data loss.