No Presenter - Crappy Service

Report · Nov 17, 2010

On 10/20 I purchased the Technical Communication Suite 2.5. When I loaded the suite, Presenter did not load.

On 10/22 I opened a case. Now, 26 days later, I still do not have Presenter - the case is still open.

I USED to be a big fan of Adobe, and have both the this suite and the Master Suite (CS5) - but this experience is souring my enthusiasm.

Anybody else have trouble getting Presenter to load? Found a solution?

Report · Nov 18, 2010

I had issues upgrading from TCS 1.3 to 2.0 to 2.5, so Adobe ended up shipping a TCS 2.5 DVD to me. When I ran that, it seems to have installed Presenter 7 (at least that's what I see in my copy of PowerPoint). I didn't realize that it even came with TCS 2.5. Try running the installers again.

Report · Nov 18, 2010

Is it included or not? Here is a section of an e-mail I sent to Adobe marketing:

"The more I look at this, the more I believe there may have been a disconnect between the product development people and the marketing people. It seems that Presenter 7 is actually not included in this suite (in the downloaded installation software), but a number of web pages and a data sheet show that it is. This page http://www.adobe.com/products/technicalcommunicationsuite/ suggests that Presenter 7 is not included (by omission), but the attached datasheet http://www.adobe.com/products/technicalcommunicationsuite/datasheets_brochures/TCS2.5_brochure_ue.pd... clearly includes it.

Also, these two pages show it as included: https://store1.adobe.com/cfusion/store/index.cfm?store=OLS-US&storeRegion=US&nr=0#view=ols_prod&cate... and https://store1.adobe.com/cfusion/store/index.cfm?store=OLS-EDU&view=ols_prod&category=/Applications/...

I bought the suite reasonably expecting it to be included.

Ooops - the e-mail just bounced - the address was bad - and this was an address on the Adobe.com site. (posted bu edit - 10 minutes after original post).

Report · Nov 18, 2010

I don't think it was part of TCS 2.0 (at least I don't remember seeing it), but it may have been included with 2.5 as part of CS5 stuff that's all muddled together in 2.5. The only way I'm seeing it installed on my XP machine is through an Adobe Present menu within PowerPoint. It appears to be a plug-in as it doesn't show up on its own in my Add/Remove Program list. What version of PowerPoint are you running & does it appear in there for you?

Report · Nov 19, 2010

I am running Windows 7 with Microsoft Office 2010. I have downloaded a trial version of Presenter 7 and loaded it successfully after editing the registry for my version of PowerPoint ( known bug I found in the knowledgebase). However, it is not part of the suite, so my keys won't work.I have 2 days left on my 30 day trial.

Presenter shows up as a PowerPoint plug-in, on Start>All Programs>Adobe>Presenter, and in my Add/Remove Program list. It appears to load just fine on my machine - just not as part of the suite.

Report · Nov 19, 2010

I'm confused - which did you download & install first? Presenter and then TCS 2.5, or the other way round? All I can say is that it seemed to be included in my purchased copy of TCS; maybe it's not included in the demo version due to some packaging error Adobe's part.

Report · Nov 19, 2010

Here's the chronolgy:

Purchased TCS 2.5
Downloaded purchased copy of TCS 2.5
Loaded TCS 2.5 - no Presenter
Removed TCS 2.5
Tried loading again
Presenter failed again
Found problem with 2010 version of PowerPoint
Applied fix
Removed TCS 2.5
Tried loading again
Presenter failed again
Downloaded Presenter 7 as a standalone free trial
Presenter 7 loaded with no problems - except I do not have a valid key for the standalone
Adobe tech suggested remove. fix registry, reload
Removed TCS 2.5
Applid registery fix
Tried loading again
Presenter failed again
Removed ALL Adobe software (including the Master Suite)
Cleaned my registry
Defragged my harddrive
Applied the registry fix
Reloaded all Adobe products
Presenter failed to load (Steps 19 - 24 took me a good chunk of time!)
Reloaded Presenter standalone
Standalone loaded with no problems - still no valid key
Received another recommendation from tech support to repeat the delete, fix registry, reload process (steps 8-11 and steps 15-17) Did not do again - this has already failed twice

28 days and counting!

Report · Nov 19, 2010

Phew!

When you reloaded TCS2.5 each time, did you re-download it?

Report · Nov 19, 2010

I did redownload once early on.

Report · Nov 19, 2010

Maybe you need to strip everything out and use a registry cleaner like revouninstaller (something like that - check the forums for "revo" - many people have found it does a great job of deleting entries); re-download TCS2.5 and install again. You will probably need to do your registry hack to get Presenter working with Office 2010 at that point. Hopefully it appears then.

Report · Nov 19, 2010

In my list, step 20 was cleaning the registry using System Mechanic - a reasonably reputable tool. I feel I have made a reasonable attempt to get this to work. If Adobe can give me any reason to think that this action will not just be filling the definition of insanity -- doing the same thing over and over again and expecting the results to be different -- I have other things to spend my life and my money on.

Report · Nov 23, 2010

The case has taken an interesting turn. Without any indication from me that I have gotten Presenter to work, Adobe has e-mailed me letting me know that the case has been resolved and is going to be closed. Most interesting - puts a whole new spin on "customer service."

Report · Nov 23, 2010

That's just their auto-close system - it can drive you crazy sometimes.