Over the past few months there have been a lot of major software releases - such as Windows Vista; Office 2007 and Adobe's Creative Suite 3.
It's the latter of which that I'm having the most troubles with - my copy of Vista Ultimate 64-bit OEM installed without a hitch, within 15 minutes of popping the disc in. Office 2007 was a doddle and Microsoft's latest addition - Expression Web, proved to be even easier. But Adobe CS3 wont budge and I'm not the only one finding it to be a PITA to install...
A brief Google search brought up pages of forum and blog posts, complaining about how bad the CS3 installer is and the numerous bugs people have encountered. For a piece of software that costs more than most computers, you'd expect it to be flawless.
The pick of the bunch is this blog post, that has managed to find the installer log - but once I opened it, I was confronted with 1000's of lines of pretty much crap. Detailed? Yes: very.
The Adobe forums are crammed full of complaints and bug reports - it doesn't appear to just be Vista that is having all the problems (many encounter them on XP). I managed to successfully install CS3 Web Premium onto my IBM laptop, which had just received a fresh install. Everything runs fine on it as far as I'm aware (I've only dabbled in Fireworks to compare it to 8 that we use at work). But, when it came to installing CS3 on Vista the results were less than acceptable. The splash menu appears, giving you the options to install; view some documentation; or browse the DVD. Upon selecting install, the Adobe Setup appears for, well, 5 seconds maybe - and then it disappears before your own eyes. A clever magic trick that Adobe have mastered, though that's where my experiences of CS3 on Vista come to an abrupt end.
I'm not bitter, just disappointed. Adobe's products have been outstanding in the past - and they've now boosted their portfolio of software with Macromedia's lineup.
For those out there that are encountering the same problems, Adobe has recommend that you format your PC and install a fresh copy of the O/S and then CS3 immediately afterwards. Great. So I have to format just to get CS3 to install - and ring Microsoft in the process, to explain why I need a new key?
"Hello, Microsoft? Yeah. I'm trying to install CS3 and Adobe recommend formatting. Can you give me a new key?"
Microsoft could very easily say no, causing even more frustration towards Adobe.
EDIT: One of the most popular search results is cdharrison.com - with a comment I couldn't agree more with:
"It€™s hard to believe a company like Adobe would ship a product with so many problems. CS3 is what makes Adobe who they are so if they€™re not careful they€™ll lose loyal fans to competitors. Too bad their aren€™t more of them. It seems Adobe is a bit arrogant with their own stuff. Not only did they wait around to release updates for the Intel Macs, they seem to be slow with Vista support as well."
EDIT2: Since posting, I've finally managed to get it to work. I revisited the 1000+ line log file and ran a search for 'error' on it - which seems the most logical thing to do in hindsight. This highlighted just the one part, which mentioned my K:\ drive again (mapped Documents) that seemed to halt the installation. This is precisely where Adobe have screwed up - there's no pop-up message box or warning, as on every other installer out there. Instead, Adobe simply closes the installer without any prior notification. Poor. At least it's running now...