[Znod]

SP1 may have killed Photoshop CS3 Extended. After installing SP1, I checked to see how CS3 was working. It seemed more responsive, less subject to hanging, etc. However, after using it a short while, I received a message indicating that "licensing is no longer active." The instructions were to repair install, uninstall and reinstall, talk to IT, or contact Adobe help. I could not find a phone number such as the one you get when activation fails. So, I chose to pursue both the 2nd and 3rd options. The repair install installed fine, but I still had the same problem after finishing. Then, the uninstall worked fine. But, the install didn't work. CS3 went through the whole install process and finally said that some shared items could not be installed--so nothing installed except a little junk. So, I am putting forth the hypothesis that there are bad feelings between SP1 and CS3 and that SP1 killed CS3 We shall see.

A better question for this topic might have been: Did Photoshop kill SP1 and Znod? The perfect storm hit. I decided to continue to try to get CS3 back on my SP1. I tried all sorts of things, for example, maintnance, to get CS3 to reinstall. Finally, I system restored back to right before I installed SP1. I tried CS3. Same problem. So, I decided to dump SP1, in favor of CS3, by Acronising back to before I installed SP1 and some other things. Acronis started its process properly. But, at some point, my screen said that something had failed to copy--possibly because of a bad disk sector. Being dumb, apparently, I decided to stop Acronis and start over. No dice. I could not restart my machine, and, for some reason, I was unable to start from my Acronis disk. So, my system melted down. I told one person jokingly earlier that I had hoped that SP1 would mess my installation up so I'd have an excuse to put 64-bit on my machine. Well, I got my wish.

I have installed Vista Ultimate 64-Bit on my HP. All is great, and the early returns imply that CS3 is working better than on 32-bit Vista. It iwas time to get free of HP anyway. I hate retore partitions and restore disks. I had already gathered most the 64-bit drivers for my system from the HP site.

The question remains. Did SP1 have anything to do with my CS3 problem? Just coincidence. I really don't know, but I have never had that kind of problem with any version of Photoshop. Man, if SP1 was responsible, then there are going to be a lot of very unhappy people out there in Vistaland even though some report no SP1-CS3 problems.