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Now I’m more than a little confused by Adobe and upgrades

Richard Charpentier Notes from Rich, Photoshop 2 Comments

Yesterday afternoon I had a disturbing conversation with another photographer friend. It confused me.

He had a small problem with his CS5 installation the other week, and it wasn’t Adobe’s fault.  He literally downloaded the program, installed it, and had a system failure the next day.  It had nothing to do with Photoshop CS5, it was just a fluke happening.

So, he got in touch with Adobe and got a disk sent out.  He was taking no chances.  His system was restored, but he hadn’t backed up the CS5 installation.

Well, he finally installed Photoshop CS5 on his machine, went to plug in his registration code and…….just like me, it wanted his previous license number.  Which he happily plugged in…….and it didn’t work.

See, he was trying to upgrade to Photoshop CS5 only and his last install was the full CS3 creative suite.  He did not have a stand alone full copy of Photoshop.  Just like me, it was part of a suite.

So, he called customer support, and you know what?  They helped him and let him do the upgrade to Photoshop CS5 from his full creative suite.  Exactly what I was told I couldn’t do.

You know what I asked him?  “What’s the name of the support person you talked to on the phone?  I want to talk to that guy………”

So, Adobe, what gives?  Is this “upgrade roulette” or something?  Did I get the “wrong guy”, or are things at the discretion of your phone support employees???

Oh, and my friend didn’t want me to put his name on this post as he doesn’t want to loose his CS5 license……..

Comments 2

  1. Yeah, I’ve heard similar stories of people that got a support person that let them upgrade when they shouldn’t have or worse – the opposite! The inconsistency in support isn’t really Adobe per se, it’s the training that these CSR’s get. Keep in mind that most of the support functions for major companies is outsourced, which means it heads overseas…

    Even in cases where you get a U.S. support agent, they are likely making close to minimum wage, and really don’t give a rats…well, you know about what “policy” is…

    It really (unfortunately) is a crap shoot sometimes…
    .-= Jason´s last blog ..Nothing But the Tail Lights =-.

  2. I made a post on Terry Whites’ blog about your posts, concerning upgrading…..with a link to your most recent post…maybe he can shed some light on the situation.

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