Apparently, that was unintentional. It's only supposed to be for existing customers.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/adriank.....ions-for-free/

Unintentional, but it still works for non-customers. >.>

True.. but amazingly badly handled. :)

Ironically, AKH himself lists the link to the same page. :)

It's not exactly free, they only wanted to take down the activation servers, activation would still be done by phone.

How does that make it 'not free'?

Actually, checking into it a bit more...

To quote:

"What is true is that Adobe is terminating the activation servers for CS2 and that for existing licensed users of CS2 who need to reinstall their software, copies of CS2 that don’t require activation but do require valid serial numbers are available. (Special serial numbers are provided on the page for each product download.) "

So, these do not require activation of any kind.

Clearly using these if you don't already own CS2 would be.. wrong... but even AHK is basically saying 'don't do this.. don't go to this link and download this software... don't install it with these keys that don't require activation...' :)

Riiiight. :P

I'm pretty sure if you have the cash to buy CS7, you're not going to waste your time on apps that were written to run on PowerPC Macs and WinXP... and let's not forget, Adobe did this. It would have been pretty trivial to avoid it by simply not including the keys and having the what - ten customers out there still using CS2 to call in with their key and validate it and send them an email with a link to a rotating URL that's keyed to their old key. A first year web programmer could write that in 10 minutes.

So, either Adobe is even MORE improbably incompetent than I've long suspected, or they really don't care that much if people use a seven year old version of CS that doesn't even run on modern Macs (the most likely users of it)...

And I updated the post to make it clear that you can't use it legally unless you've got CS2 already.

So.. *shrug* :)

I didn't look into the subject that much, I wouldn't start using CS2 just because it's "free" anyway.

Thanks for the links. I *do* own Creative Suite CS2 Web and, indeed, the last time I had to reinstall I had to call.

Why not upgrade? Do you have *any* idea how much CS2 Web cost when new? $1500. Since I'm still using XP on those machines, and I don't "need" the new functionality, I'll stick with it.

Thank you! I have PhotoShop CS2 on my old 512 MB G4 Mac Mini. I've just gotten a "newer" 1 GB G4 Mini, and now I won't have to worry about how the heck I'm going to install it there. Yes, PhotoShop CS2 will work with only 512 MB under OS X 10.4.8 (but not .9, .10, or .11), IF I quit everything else, including FireFox. Hopefully, with 1 GB, I'll be able to keep my browser open.

Just wanted to thank you again for the heads-up on CS2. After way too long, I just upgraded and bought a new laptop! And, until I update to CS5 or CS6, CS2 will have to do.

If only Adobe made actually installing CS2 easy. The CD's are useless - the supplied keys work ONLY on the downloads! I would rather install from the original Adobe CD set but they have now made that impossible, it seems.

So your post was a life-saver (or, at least, a HUGE time saver).

:hugs: