Can Vector brushes be vector brushes?

[Andy05]

13 minutes ago, loukash said:

From all ADe (and AI, for that matter) alternatives I've tried so far, for me VS is the one to keep. Personally I see VS sort of as an equivalent to GraphicConverter: it never was my go-to bitmap editor, but it always had a spot in my Applications folder, ever since the Mac System 7 days.

I have still Adobe's old ("pre subscription") creative suite installed—this serves mainly as my format conversion tool. Affinity Photo is doing everything I need for pixel based works, same with Publisher for layouts. Just Designer still lacks some very important essentials for me (like, vector brushes!), but for that I have CorelDraw (I think it's a 2019 SE version - also without subscription) installed. 

The main problem for me is that I will never be able to reinstall my Adobe suite once I change the system or OS. 😕

[loukash]

13 minutes ago, Andy05 said:

I have still Adobe's old ("pre subscription") creative suite installed

So do I on my old Mac. Just recently I actually had to do some work with InDesign CS5.5 again because a client – a design hobbyist – created his own ID layouts and asked me to do the final preflight check and to export PDF/X for print. Of course he's using the recent CC version so he had to send me IDML. At first I was even considering using Affinity to import the IDMLs, but a first brief test showed that particularly the subsequent PDF export would require a massive overhaul of the whole layout to work around all those PDFlib issues as well as the recent color profile bugs in Affinity, so in order to save time – and the client's money – I had to stay within ID. As it was just a "technical" job with no truly creative input on my part required, it was manageable.  

13 minutes ago, Andy05 said:

I will never be able to reinstall my Adobe suite once I change the system or OS. 😕

Have they turned off the license servers already?

[Andy05]

21 minutes ago, loukash said:

Have they turned off the license servers already?

Uhm. Good question. I thought I've read something like that quite some time ago, because Adobe wants to enforce old users paying for the subscription when they change their system or OS.

Yeah, it seems so:

Quote

 

Our aging activation servers for earlier versions of Acrobat and Creative Suite (CS) applications had to be retired. You won't be able to activate these apps, as these activation servers are no longer available.

Affected applications include Creative Suite 2, 3, and 4, Acrobat 7, 8, and Acrobat 3D Version 8.

 

 

[loukash]

9 minutes ago, Andy05 said:

"Affected applications include Creative Suite 2, 3, and 4, Acrobat 7, 8, and Acrobat 3D Version 8."

Just checked: ID CS3 still lives and launches on my old PowerBook G4. I vaguely remember keeping it there for a purpose of converting some old QXP or PM layouts that cannot be directly converted via CS5.5 (or so I thought) – and thus subsequently to IDML → afpub. Means I shouldn't wipe that drive anytime soon…  
From what I recall though, cloning a drive and running it within the same Mac didn't require online (re)activation of the CS suite. Been there done that many times.

Anyway… we're getting off topic.  

[albertkinng]

1 hour ago, loukash said:

Just recently I actually had to do some work with InDesign CS5.5

Could you verify if a phone authentication code isn't required for CS5? I've been told by a seller offering a brand-new, sealed copy that it's not necessary, unlike with earlier versions. Is this correct?

[loukash]

13 minutes ago, albertkinng said:

Could you verify if a phone authentication code isn't required for CS5?

I vaguely remember having to phone them once because something didn't work, but that would have been way over 10 years ago. Since then I have reinstalled CS5 a few times, the last time in 2019. I have it active on both the 2012 and 2008 MBPs, each running El Capitan. Also, I have bootable clones of each drive, and the CS5 apps would launch from there as well.

However, I never had the suite, in case that may make a difference. I was upgrading each app individually only as needed, originally coming from the "Adobe Design Collection" back in 2001 or so. Yep, Adobe ripping off customers always had a system. I couldn't believe it at first, but in the long run I must have saved quite a few hundred CHF by not upgrading to the "suite" while also skipping a version or two that didn't seem to bring any benefit to my work. So my Adobe upgrade path was: ADC (ID2, AI10, PS7, AC5) → individually to ID/AI/PS/AC CS3 → individually via a massive black friday discount to ID/AI/PS CS5.x + later ACX

[lacerto]

6 hours ago, loukash said:

6 hours ago, Andy05 said:

I will never be able to reinstall my Adobe suite once I change the system or OS. 😕

Have they turned off the license servers already?

@Andy05 Why so? Do you know if something has recently changed?

I bought a new Windows 11 Pro laptop early in 2022 and on a specific request on Adobe chat support "for reactivation" (there are guys who do specifically just that) and with the help of one of those guys I was able to install CS6 Master Suite on the new computer while they waited to verify that activation works. I had  four installations on other computers. The support guy asked me if I want my installation count to be reset to zero, and I did not reject, whatever that meant... I do not know if that had any effect on my subsequent activations and installations of CS6 Master Suite, but about a half year ago I purchased a new Intel NUC on which I installed the same suite (license). I still have old installations on the mentioned four older computers, and I can deactivate the suite on one computer and reactivate on another, as I wish. These are Windows 10 and 11 Pro computers. On one of these computers, I recently experienced an issue with Adobe Acrobat X Pro (part of CS6 suite), but managed to resolve this issue by downloading a cleaner tool from Adobe web site, and then reinstalling just Adobe Acrobat Pro from the suite. So I do not feel being let down by Adobe -- but as far as I know, they offer activation help only with CS6 suite (and not e.g. even with 5.5) [EDIT: According to the link referred above to Adobe site activation support seems to work for versions CS5 and later, but I am not sure if they offer live chat support and activation count reset service for versions other than CS6, so not being able to deactivate because having broken computers would likely be an issue.]

On the new NUC I also managed to get my old QuarkXPress 2018 activated. I had it installed and activated already on the allowed max two computers, the other being a virtual Mojave macOS on my old Dell laptop. Here, too, I had support personnel on live chat, and while QXP2018 is already out of support, they promised to reset the installation count if I failed to get it deactivated on the mentioned virtual mac. That worked, and even if QXP 2018 is not officially supported on Windows 11, it seems to run just fine on it.

Adobe CS6 Suite is now over a decade old software and runs without issues on both Windows 10 and 11 (we have two licenses and four computers where the whole suite is activated and run professionally all the time). Based on recent experiences, Adobe activation servers are still operational (with CS6, for which we have two licenses), so one can deactivate on one computer and activate on another.

I also just used a Black Friday offer to upgrade my CorelDRAW Graphic Suite from 2017 to 2023 (perpetual license, for both Windows and macOS) at about EUR 350 (VAT 0), which is nice to have in its own right (we had already version 1), but also to be able to use newer features not available e.g. in Illustrator. Photoshop and Microsoft Office are currently the only subscription based apps our family company uses, and we hope to be able to keep it that way during the remaining time of our professional careers.

[albertkinng]

On 11/28/2023 at 5:03 AM, loukash said:

I see VS sort of as an equivalent to GraphicConverter: it never was my go-to bitmap editor, but it always had a spot in my Applications folder, ever since the Mac System 7 days.

Exactly!

[loukash]

On 11/28/2023 at 12:17 PM, loukash said:

Just checked: ID CS3 still lives and launches on my old PowerBook G4.

Hm… I was too fast to judge, hehe. Aparently I must have (re)installed ID CS3 on this old Mac only recently for some reason, no idea why. But obviously at that time was the server down already because eventually yesterday a message popped up that servers can't be reached and the application must quit unless registered.
But… I still have the original Leopard boot drive from my MBP 2008 with both CS3 and CS5.5 installed. As that installation was fully registered, it should likely still work. I'll check it out later.