Text 16938, 65 rader
Skriven 2007-02-27 13:29:46 av Rich Gauszka (1:379/45)
Ärende: Adobe 8 DRM nightmare
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From: "Rich Gauszka" <gauszka@dontspamhotmail.com>

Adobe - If you use a disk defragger the activation doesn't like it?

http://weblog.infoworld.com/gripeline/archives/2007/02/acrobat_activat.html
when it comes to stupid IT designs as far as the activation issues I
encountered with Adobe. I upgraded from Acrobat 7.0 to 8.0, because the demos
and features looked great. After installing it, I didn't really use it for a
few months. Then I went to use it and it said it was not activated."


When the reader went to the menu, he was puzzled to see both the "Activate' and
"Deactivate' buttons turned off. "Seems stupid -- shouldn't one always be
highlighted?" the reader wondered. "After calling in, Adobe told me to run the
repair function. I did, and it worked for one day, and then it was deactivated
again and both buttons were off again. I called again and waited on hold
forever to be told to uninstall and reinstall. So I uninstalled and it
deactivated. I went to reinstall and it said I did not have an original product
to upgrade from. Wow, like I'm supposed to keep all hundred-plus key codes I've
ever had from Adobe. So after about 3 more people and a lot more time on the
phone I got around the installation and activated again with a temp key. Then
within hours it deactivated again."


The reader then entered a support nightmare from which he is yet to awaken. For
weeks on end, tech after tech would tell him to run the repair function and
reinstall. When that wouldn't work, the techs would begin speculating as to
what changes he should make to him computer to placate the activation gods.
"Gee, the guy would say, why do you need to mirror your hard drive?" the reader
wrote. "Then they send me to another and the guy says, gee, if you upgrade or
restore your drive, or change your configuration, or backup to Ghost, or use a
RAID array, or use a disk defragger, the activation doesn't like it. Then they
start asking why I need to do these things, which is none of their business."


Some of the Adobe techs mentioned that what the reader really needed to fix the
activation problem was "Patch 2.70." Unfortunately, it seems Patch 2.70 is not
provided to just any old Acrobat customer, and the reader had to supplicate his
way up the support ladder to find someone who could authorize sending it to
him. "I finally get to the right guy and he asks me why I need it and why I
can't stop mirroring and defragging and using Ghost. Finally he says he'll
escalate the issue and I'll have an e-mail in 24 hours. Next day there's no
e-mail so I call back. It was never escalated and I have to start the process
of filing to get the patch all over again."


The reader is a stubborn man, though, and he eventually prevailed upon Adobe to
send him Patch 2.70. It didn't help. Several more weeks of escalations to
supervisors and higher levels of Adobe support have followed, without success.
Last week Adobe promised to send him a copy of Acrobat - presumably the
corporate version - that would get around the problem. But at last report it
still hasn't shown, so the reader's copy of Acrobat 8 remains deactivated.


"The amount of time, support, and money that Adobe and I have wasted on this is
crazy," the reader wrote. "I understand protecting your product, but these
people have gone way overboard with this activation that's tied so closely to
the hardware that you can't do anything that doesn't upset it. Many people back
up, restore, defrag and mirror disks and many more will do so as the prices
come down. I think Adobe needs to clean some management house, toss out this
stupid activation process, and get something that works instead of the
runaround."

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