Expert: LizaL - 12/22/2006

Question
I am trying to install a new upgrade of Photoshop to a new iMac and it will not
recognize my old photoshop 3.0.5's serial number.  The program will not find
the old program because it is on our ancient macbook, a 1400C/166.  I am
retired from teaching, and some of my programs came from my college, so I
don't have the original disks, just the numbers.  Any suggestions how to deal
with this?  I do have AppleCare and the MacMall phone help from some
foreign country says that AppleCare can fix this.  I wanted the Photoshop
program to do some photo work for a future website. Thanks for the help.

Answer
Hi Rose,

You say you're installing a "new" upgrade, but you didn't mention what version it was. I'm going to guess it's Photoshop 7 or CS (or maybe CS2?). If that's the case, it's entirely possible that this upgrade will NOT recognize the old version of Photoshop as valid for upgrading. In other words, nothing is wrong; this is expected.

Many program upgrades are time-dependent -- that is, you can't just purchase one copy and rely on that to be sufficient for upgrading throughout the life of the software. There's a pretty big span of years between Photoshop 3 and Photoshop 7xx -- and in protection of their product (not to mention income), Adobe (as well as most other software manufacturers) restricts their software's upgrading capabilities.

I use Photoshop CS, and no longer even own the earlier versions. But if I remember correctly, in order to install CS, I had to at least have version 5 or above. So long story short, I'm not surprised at what's happening with your update, and as I say, it's expected. There's really nothing you can do about this except purchase the newer version of Photoshop.

AppleCare does protect some software in the way of offering a "help desk" :
http://www.apple.com/support/products/helpdesk.html

But I'm not so sure they're going to be happy when you tell them you don't own the original software, yet have the serial numbers. They might very well construe this as bootlegging.

I can sympathize with your situation entirely. I used to teach at a local college but quit nearly 7 years ago -- but I still do private training and freelance design. So when I stopped teaching, I realized that the only recourse I had, in terms of software, was to buy my own copies and NOT use what belonged to the college.

Loosely stated, my college's policy was that the teachers in our department could *use* the software packages that we taught, but only on the machines at school -- with the codicil that we would not use the software for personal and/or monetary gain. In other words, we could use the software only for lesson plans and instruction, and only at school. We could NOT copy the software or serial numbers.

To do otherwise is bootlegging, and highly punishable by law -- even if you've obtained the software from a source such as a school.

So my advice is to forget the old copy of Photoshop, and buy a new one, licensed to YOU. It's not cheap, but it's worth it in the long run, believe me. When I quit teaching, I slowly bought all of the programs that I use, and I would advise everyone to do the same.

I'm sorry this doesn't help you in terms of using your Photoshop upgrade, but the bootlegging laws are strict, and I'd hate to see you get into trouble.

Lisa