Others say...

"Good programs...when they work!"
Like the others here I have had horrible problems with this software. Initially we spent 7 full days installing. Once we finally got the install done (and I wish I'd had the guy with the McAfee problem talking to me when I started: same fix) it worked for about a week. Now Dreamweaver will not open, and I have hundreds of SideBySide errors on my computer. I have googled the problem and it seems others are having the issue but no one has a solution. When I e-mailed technical service I got a brief reply telling me to reinstall....it didn't look like they even took the time to look and see if it was a legitimate problem.

Best advice....don't buy it.

"Wonderful Products Trapped Behind Flawed Adobe Installer/Licensing Software on Vista Home Premium/McAfee Anti-Virus"
[UPDATED: Successfully Installed after One Week of Failed Attempts!]

The following are my experiences using Adobe Creative Suite 3 (CS3) Design Premium on a Windows Vista Home Premium laptop. Your experience may vary. Hopefully, the hints about anti-virus below will save you time.

These issues may also affect the following other products.

* Adobe Creative Suite 3 Design Standard
* Adobe Creative Suite 3 Web Standard
* Adobe Creative Suite 3 Web Premium

I've been using and installing PC software for some 20+ years, ranging from commodity consumer programs to complex engineering packages. Installing the he Adobe Creative Suite package was challenging, at least for me on Vista. I suspect that the problem actually resides in Adobe's new anti-piracy licensing software. Adobe is certainly within its rights to protect their generally high-quality software. Unfortunately, it's apparently so secure that even paying customers have trouble using it!

I spent more time attempting to install the software than I paid for it! After trolling the various self-support sites, digging through Windows event files, and sumbitting a web support case (fortunately, Adobe's support team is generally quite good), it now works! In my case, I had to completely (and I mean _completely_) disable the McAfee anti-virus software on my machine. Adobe actually recommended that I completely uninstall my anti-virus program before attempting the installation, but fortunately McAfee allows you to temporarily disable itself. There is scant mention of any of these issues in the documents that come with the product or on the Adobe support pages.


Don't trust just my review on this. Please see some of the other comments on Adobe's own support forum site and other negative reviews on the web. Just search for "adobe cs3 install problems" and "adobe forums".

The Adobe products themselves are excellent, mostly best-in-class. Now that I have the product successfully installed, I would raise my rating to a '3', solely for the flawed installation process. Once installed, the programs work very well.

NOTE: Generating PDF from Word 2007 is different than for previous versions. You must now "Save As" and select PDF. There is also a XPS/PDF tool available directly from Windows that is very fast and generally produces good PDF. However, I encountered a number of problems with broken links after apply document security or watermarking on the Microsoft-generated PDF or optimizing the file size. PDF saved using the Adobe PDF writer took significantly longer to generate, but they worked flawlessly after apply security and watermarking. I'm chalking this up to the relative novelty of Vista.

By the way, be sure to select Help --> Check for Updates after installing the Adobe software. You will be udpated from Acrobat 8.0 to 8.1, which appears crucial for Office 2007.

"don't be another human guinea pig"
I should have listened... but no, I went ahead and bought Adobe's CS3. Big mistake. It took me 6 hrs. just to get a working copy installed, and I'm no spring chicken. I used to do technical support when Adobe was still Aldus. I can't even comprehend why Adobe would release this. It's simply unconscionable. There's many many frustrated CS3 buyers out there. Just google, you'll see. So anyhow I got it installed - or so I thought. I went to open the Flash Video Encoder to finish a project, and it crashed three times. Finally it tells me that the "licensing subsystem failed catastrophically." Real informative, real confidence instilling, thanks Adobe. So I spent another morning on the phone with Tech Support, the guy was nice, but no solution. The problem was escalated, they said they'd call back within 24 hrs. It's been that and still no word. Meanwhile my project languishes (I was hoping to use the new codec). Looks like I'll use the old version, which at least works. Meanwhile my hours just trying to get this beast to work are approaching the price of admisssion... and who is paying for that? Adobe? Fat chance...

I'd rate this 0 stars if I could.

"A great product gets even better!"
I just bought the Creative Suite CS3 Design Premium upgrade the other day. While I haven't had a chance to install the upgrade yet, I've owned both Adobe Creative Suites CS and CS2. As a graphic and web designer, and a small press publisher who designs his own books, not only am I looking forward to the upgrades to Photoshop, the program I use most, the fact that both Dreamweaver and Flash have been added to the package has me very excited. Although the upgrade pricing is about the same as previous upgrades, the value in my estimation has at least doubled. I've always wanted to learn both Dreamweaver and Flash, but the cost of them prevented me the opportunity to purchase them until now.

I know that these programs are not necessarily easy to learn, they are widely used and supported, and there are hundreds of resources in print, on the web, and on video, to help you become proficient in every piece software.

If you have any interest in become a design professional, either for yourself or to seek work for others, Design Premium, as well as it's alternative CS3 package configurations, are the best value in price, power, and quality, for those in the design field. If at all possible, you should pick this up today.