How do I activate Photoshop CS?

Forum|Forum|6 years ago
May 22, 2019
1 reply
3442 views

A couple days ago I bought Photoshop CS on eBay (it's a legit copy with original disk), and it just arrived today. So I have installed it, but now I'm at the point where I need to activate it. How do I activate it? I tried online activation but it gave me an error and said the activation server was offline. As far as I knew, only the activation server for Photoshop CS2 went offline (which is why the activation-free version was made available), and the activation server for Photoshop CS continued to run. Unfortunately that doesn't seem to be the case. It seems that the activation server for Photoshop CS is offline too. Can an Adobe employee here tell me if it's still possible to activate? Is there a free activation "authorization code" that you can give me, similar to the way that Photoshop CS2 was made free? I assume you wouldn't want to make this code public, so you can send it to my email address instead. My email address is <email address removed>

This topic has been closed for replies.

gener7

Community Expert

CS and CS2 both had the activation servers retired at the same time, and the CS2 non-activation version was free for those owners.

I don't know who told you the CS activation servers were still online.

The activation free CS2 version download was recently taken offline after being up for a few years.

Contact Customer Care and see if they will provide the CS2 link. Download older versions of Adobe apps

B

Benhut1Author

Inspiring

I already tried that (installing CS2) from the free downloads back when it was available online. I uninstalled it when I realized it had a bug in it. So I ended up trying to find a copy of original CS, which is quite rare to get a copy now. I got lucky the other day when I found it on eBay, so I bought it. I am running it now without an activation (for the 30day period) and discovered it doesn't have the bug. It also has the same interface I'm used to from Photoshop 7 (I've previously used my dad's copy of Photoshop 7 years ago on his computer for when I needed to edit pictures). CS2 also has a completely new interface I don't like. So that is another reason I chose CS instead of CS2 or newer. And I bought CS rather than 7 on eBay because it is newer and I believe it has a certain feature that 7 doesn't have. While newer versions of CSx (such as CS2 or CS6) have features that CS doesn't, they don't have additional features that I would find useful for how I would use Photoshop. CS is that "sweet spot" that's got all of the features I need (including those that are not present in Photoshop 7 and earlier) but doesn't have the bug introduced in CS2 (and hasn't ever been fixed, which I know because my dad now has upgraded to CS6 and I've tried it and it still has the same bug as in CS2).

So if I ever had to recommend any version of Photoshop to other hobbyists like me, I'd recommend Photoshop CS. So as you can see, that activation-free version of CS2 is just a no-go for me. I'm sticking with Photoshop CS. I would just like to have a way of activating it before the 30days runs out.

Jeff Arola

Community Expert

What is the bug in photoshop cs2?

Perhaps someone here knows a workaround or solution.

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