[FireWire]

Hi! I just received my copy of Adobe CS3 Design Premium and I found myself unable to install it. The installer asks for authentication then starts "initializing"; a green progress bar is shown but suddenly stops and after waiting and waiting, I have no choice but to force quit it (app not responding).

I searched the web and apparently many people experience installation problems, but not exactly like mine. I followed many advices but none worked. Apparently CS3 won't install with Safari 3 present, so I reverted to version 2; no luck. I copied the DVD content to the hard drive and attempted a desktop installation; same thing. I even ran the uninstaller script to be sure there was no trace of a previous installation (although this is a brand new computer). Some people mentionned that CS3 wouldn't be compatible with 10.4.10, which would be frustrating since I got it as part of a student promotion when you buy a new Mac, which incidentally comes with 10.4.10...

This is very frustrating as I'm sure my machine is fine (I just got it, and I didn't mess with it, or install hacks) and this software is quite expensive. Do you have any advice? Thank you!

[Edit] And for the records, my filesystem (fsck) is OK and I just had my permissions verified/repaired.

[Weyland-Yutani]

Adobe.. puking out buggy and bloated apps? They have no respect for their customers. Simply demands cash for every incremental "upgrade" which adds next to nothing and leaves most of the old bugs unfixed.

They are the new Microsoft.

I'm proud of them. They grow up so fast

[analogika]

Have you tried the obvious - contacted Adobe?

[FireWire]

Originally Posted by analogika 

Have you tried the obvious - contacted Adobe?

Well, hum, no Judging from what I read on the web, their tech support is horrible and would only suggest what I already did. I will contact them eventually but I wanted to see if some people here had any "real" advice.

[Update] I finally called them and surprisingly it didn't take long to solve the problem. The lady didn't seem to know the Mac very well, but she followed some instructions and after a few pointless tests like verifying if my DVD drive was working properly, we finally got it to work. The trick was to enable root user, then restart in safe boot mode, as root, then the installer would function as intended. Pretty strange!

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by Weyland-Yutani 

Adobe.. puking out buggy and bloated apps?

Photoshop has always been rock stable for me on OS X. And bloated? Every feature Photoshop has is basically needed. If Photoshop is "bloated" for you, maybe you should try a more simplistic editor.

They have no respect for their customers.

Well some of their employees don't. I'll give you that. I have however ran into the occasional helpful and friendly person there.

Simply demands cash for every incremental "upgrade" which adds next to nothing and leaves most of the old bugs unfixed.

If you don't think the new features are "nothing new" again maybe you don't use Photoshop to it's potential. I would never want Photoshop to lack any of the features it has right now. I'd miss them too much. As most are used daily.

They are the new Microsoft.

No, MS is still the new MS. Adobe is just like every other software company out there.

The only difference is, it has the only decent Photo manipulation tool out there. And they know it. So they are kind of snobby because of it.

Having said that, they are A LOT better to deal with than Quark is.

[Weyland-Yutani]

Originally Posted by Kevin 

Photoshop has always been rock stable for me on OS X. And bloated? Every feature Photoshop has is basically needed. If Photoshop is "bloated" for you, maybe you should try a more simplistic editor.

Well some of their employees don't. I'll give you that. I have however ran into the occasional helpful and friendly person there.

If you don't think the new features are "nothing new" again maybe you don't use Photoshop to it's potential. I would never want Photoshop to lack any of the features it has right now. I'd miss them too much. As most are used daily.

No, MS is still the new MS. Adobe is just like every other software company out there.

The only difference is, it has the only decent Photo manipulation tool out there. And they know it. So they are kind of snobby because of it.

Having said that, they are A LOT better to deal with than Quark is.

Adobe is the new Microsoft. The Weyland-Yutani corporation has full confidence in that conclusion.

That said, we are concerned about Microsoft and Quark for that matter. Both corporations are far more human and better to deal with than Adobe.

This is most unfortunate.

[MacosNerd]

I second the thought of giving them a call. I've had zero problems with CS3 and I'm very happy with the feature set.

The other poster who thinks its too bloated may be better suited for photoshop elements or another less robust application if he thinks photoshop is too much for him.

[Weyland-Yutani]

Originally Posted by MacosNerd 

The other poster who thinks its too bloated may be better suited for photoshop elements or another less robust application if he thinks photoshop is too much for him.

It isn't an opinion, it is policy. Of which the Weyland-Yutani corporation supports Adobe in whole-heartedly.

[analogika]

Originally Posted by Weyland-Yutani 

the Weyland-Yutani corporation

It's getting old.

[Weyland-Yutani]

Originally Posted by analogika 

It's getting old.

We don't care the least. You will still pay us your money. Always.

You are our.. gimp. Shall we say. You do what we say, you pay what we demand.

And you will love it.

[Kenneth]

I installed the Adobe CS 3 Design Premium a dozen time on school machines (ranging from G4 to Mac Pro). However, the school received disc image from the actual DVDs. At first it was tricky to install all the apps, we unchecked VersionCue CS 3 anyway.

Did you have a chance to read the error log? Safari 3 shouldn't be the problem, but no web browser should be running during the installation. Remember, Design Premium is huge and it takes time to install even on a fast Mac.

The trick was to enable root user, then restart in safe boot mode, as root, then the installer would function as intended. Pretty strange!

I haven't never done that. Very interesting answer from the mothership.

[FireWire]

Originally Posted by Kenneth 

Did you have a chance to read the error log? Safari 3 shouldn't be the problem, but no web browser should be running during the installation. Remember, Design Premium is huge and it takes time to install even on a fast Mac.

There was nothing significant in the log, because it simply froze: it didn't crash and it didn't quit. On one try I let it beachball for a very long time and the progress bar remained at the same place, and clicking in the Dock revealed that the app was not responding. I don't know why Safari would cause a problem.. That's what I read on a few help sites; it has something to do with the WebKit version. But when I successfully installed it as the root user, I had not removed Safari 3 and I encountered no problem.

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by Weyland-Yutani 

Adobe is the new Microsoft. The Weyland-Yutani corporation has full confidence in that conclusion.

I'll make sure not to buy stock in the Weyland-Yutani corporation then.

That said, we are concerned about Microsoft and Quark for that matter. Both corporations are far more human and better to deal with than Adobe.

While Adobe is no picnic. Quark is far worse. I can't say anything about MS because I've never had to deal with any public relations with them. I don't think you were referring to public relations when comparing MS and Adobe anyhow. But "Bloat" factor.

People complain that Office gets features no one uses, therefore bloats the application. Photoshop on the other hand gives us features that people actually USE.

Originally Posted by MacosNerd 

The other poster who thinks its too bloated may be better suited for photoshop elements or another less robust application if he thinks photoshop is too much for him.

That was exactly my point as well.

To the average person, Photoshop will seem bloated. So will Illustrator, InDesign, etc.
These are pro level applications. Not toys.

[Don Pickett]

Originally Posted by Kevin 

If you don't think the new features are "nothing new" again maybe you don't use Photoshop to it's potential. I would never want Photoshop to lack any of the features it has right now. I'd miss them too much. As most are used daily.

I've been using Photoshop since version 1.0, and while I agree it's a great program, and the only real choice for professional use, it has its fair share of bloat and questionable features. Some of the most hyped features, like the Healing Brush, I don't find to be very useful at all. Most of the features I find really useful, like the Channel Mixer, aren't hyped that much. It seems to be that every other release has a really useable feature. CS had some good stuff, but CS2 didn't add much. CS3 ads adjustment layers, which are very cool. For the kind of work I do in Photoshop (color correcting, retouching and comping) the basic toolset of Photoshop hasn't changed in years and years. Most of what has been added are refinements, and whether or not they are used depends on the operator in question.

No, MS is still the new MS. Adobe is just like every other software company out there.

I think they are, but let me be specific. I think Adobe, like Microsoft, has reached market saturation. The design (both print and web), printing and pre-press fields are large, but they are finite, and I think Adobe has sold just about everyone it can a copy of the CS suite. Because of this, their only hope for continued growth is to release upgrades, and, as I have said, I feel some of these are of questionable value. Illustrator, in particular, hasn't had a really useful feature added in a long time, and it has become a bloated and crash-prone program. InDesign is still not feature complete with Quark, and it is, IMO, bloated and slow compared to Quark, especially with longer documents. I have seen 60 page InDesign documents grow to over 100MB in size, and I have seen InDesign take over 800 MB of RAM just while printing these documents. Some of the places I work have had to add RAM to their machines because they have decided that InDesign, Illustrator and Acrobat alone require a GB of RAM. My point here is not to get into an ID versus Quark contest, but to point out what I believe is Adobe's focus on upgrades over necessary features and good engineering.

Furthermore, I find Adobe is starting to act like Microsoft and exhibit anti-competitive behavior. InDesign CS2 and CS3 have problems with .eps files: documents won't print and PDFs can't be made. If you call Adobe's tech support and ask them, they will tell you to use .ai files instead. .Eps is an industry standard, well documented and understood, so that any program which wishes can read and write .eps files. .Ai files are an Adobe-only standard, accessible only to Adobe apps. To me, this move is nothing more than an attempt to move people away from a relatively open standard to a closed one, and essentially cripple the competition.

So, I do think Adobe is like Microsoft in the sense that their focus has shifted from giving professionals what they need to trying to hold onto market share and drive customers away from other products and lock them into their solutions. The guys who founded Adobe and understood the market are long gone (we miss you, John Warnock!) and the marketing guys are fully in control now.

Having said that, they are A LOT better to deal with than Quark is.

Quark's gotten better. They got their ass handed to them and learned the lesson the hard way.

[Kevin]

The healing brush IS AWESOME! I upgraded just for that. While you can do the same thing other ways, it simply saves more time. I don't call that bloat.

AS far as your InDesign problems, I haven't ran into them..