Adobe CS3 Rant - Part 2

I just transfered my Adobe CS3 software to my new system. After my horrible experience with it last year, I was a bit nervous. I de-activated the suite on my old system and installed it on the new one. The install only took a half hour, far better than last year. Apparently, Adobe QAs on new fast systems that are untouched.

The fun came when I tried to enter my serial number. It took my serial number but it then wanted proof that it was an upgrade since it couldn't find CS2 on the machine. It asked me to enter a serial number for either CS2 or CS2.3 Upgrade. Since my CS2.3 box says "Upgrade" on it, I tried that one first. It did not recognized the number. So for the heck of it, I tried the other option (CS2) and it worked. But then another input field appeared and it asked me to enter another serial number. This time the only option was CS2.3 Upgrade (the one that did not work), which does not work.

So I get on the phone and give Adobe a call. Being a Sunday evening, the wait was not that long. I try explaining my situation to the customer service person who's native language is not English, does not speak clearly (slurring), and has no real desire to solve the problem. He transfers me to a helpful pre-sales person (who chuckles when I tell him I was just transferred from customer service). He seems to think that the software deal I got when I bought it is unusual for some reason, even though I bought directly from Adobe for CS2 and CS3. He sends me back to customer service with the instructions to request for re-serialization. While back on hold, I'm playing around with the verify screen and I enter in serial number for Acrobat Pro that came with my CS2.3 Upgrade, it works! I quickly hang up, narrowly avoiding another experience with customer "service". Now I'm left with pondering why they ask for a CS2.3 Upgrade serial number when they really want an Acrobat Pro number... What has happened to Adobe? They're sure making a great case for open source software.

On the upside, after I got everything running, I poked around on the CS3 Content disk and found that Illustrator CS3 has Wacom 6d Pen support. In the Goodies folder there is an Illustrator file with a small variety of brushes that work with the 6d Pen, and they work nicely. I saved them out as a library for future use. Why doesn't Photoshop CS3 have 6d Pen support yet?