I've just spent a good part of the last 24 hours installing Adobe CS3 Web Premium. Sure I didn't spend the whole time on the install. But I was doing something towards it for most of my waking hours. I have never had so much trouble installing the web studio before. Perhaps the most disappointing part was that I couldn't use my serial number with the trial software I installed last month. Consequently I had to uninstall every application before trying to install the suite (each application took 20 minutes to uninstall). This was a real headache as I don't have a DVD drive and the suite only comes on DVD. This is clearly mentioned in the system requirements so I can't grumble here. But it wasn't an unreasonable assumption that I could use my serial number to activate the trial software. In the end I had to transfer the 2GB of install onto a Flash drive and install from there (I wasted quite a bit of time exploring other options before I found this solution; which required the purchase of a 2GB+ Flash drive).
I made one big mistake while uninstalling the Flash trial; I didn't uninstall the Flash player and plugin because I needed them for Flex. When I ran the installer I couldn't install Flash because it said I already had Flash (because I hadn't uninstalled the player and plugin). In the end it took another 20 minutes to uninstall the two remaining Flash components before I could re-run the installer.
The final small obstacle was that I couldn't activate the software without disabling my firewall. This wasn't a big thing (though I didn't feel comfortable about needing to disable my firewall).
My question at the end of all this is why does it need to be so difficult (and I know from searching that my experience is mild compared to some). Most of the issues seem to come from an attempt to make the different applications interact more seamlessly. Most of the install (and uninstall) time is spent dealing with "shared components". But I'd give that up in a second if I was given some options about how I want to install and use the software. I rarely need my applications to work hand in hand. What I want is for them to start quickly, run efficiently and take care of the job at hand with as little fuss as possible so I can move onto to the next part of the workflow. I'm sure I'm not speaking for everyone. But at the same time I'm sure I'm not the only user who feels this way.
3 comments:
I can confirm that installing CS3 is a real BIG headache. I just wanted to install only Acrobat on my Vista 64-bit machine.
But after installation, Acrobat does not lauch unless you install Photoshop first.
In order to install Photoshop, all shared components are automatically installed again which takes ages and ages.
In my 10 years of digital life, I have never encounted such a stupid installation method....
Microsoft can be satisfied about the many dissappointed users Adobe will get with the current headacke installation method of Adobe CS3 suite.....especially when you only want to install/de-install separate programs of the suite.
I agree what a pain to install. I have to get some sleep soon and its like watching paint dry!
God, that sounds awful. I have Adobe CS on my computer and finally decided to install Photoshop CS3.
Even the extraction process took too long. Then when installing I had to close firefox and wait for another age to go by , which would be okay, if I didn't come to the realization that something went wrong on the installation and I'd have to reinstall.
I currently gave up on the uninstall, I can't tell if it's getting stuck on the shared components or I'm being impatient. But I'm leaving it to another day. If at least I could keep browsing while the damned thing sets up!
I've always liked Photoshop, but lately I'm starting to get more attached to Corel just for it being less of a hassle.
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