Category Archives: Tips and tricks

Adobe CS4 does not accept your valid registration code

By Paul | Published: March 9, 2010

Image via Wikipedia

Alright, once again I came across a silly Adobe “feature” while trying to install Adobe Design Standard CS4 – the installation did not accept my registration code I had acquired from Adobe’s volume licensing site (meaning you can make multiple installation from one installation media).

I have a set of Design Premium CS4 discs, but I only need the standard edition and a few Indesign installations. I did three successful installations on brand new Windows 7 workstations, and then with the fourth workstation it did not work any more. I could not understand why! It was an identical workstation, and I did it exactly as before (at least I thought so), but the registration code was not accepted! I uninstalled and reinstalled, but without success!

To top it all, when I tried to check the code at the LWS site I got this response: “Adobe does not recognize you as an authorized user of this web site”. WTF! I had similar problems last time I tried to log in and reset my password etc, except that last time I could log in. Oh well, while I waited for a response from Adobe I tried one last thing…

The thing is that I did not install the English CS4 on an English version of Windows! And during the install the installation software asks in what language do you want to install CS4, and it suggests the localization language (which happened to be Swedish in this case).

So after I once uninstalled CS4 I reinstalled and chose to accept the License Agreement in English and chose English as the installation language, and that was it!

When I started the first CS4 application I could enter the registration code I had used earlier and it was happily accepted!

Personal thought: It seems that when any company grows too big and have most competition either out-competed or bought-up the sloppiness and arrogance starts to show. We have seen this with QuarkXpress and Microsoft, and now with Adobe… I already had weird installation issues with CS3 (see previous post) and obviously it continues. Too bad, perhaps I should check out Quark Xpress again?

Free Xdata with Purchase of QuarkXPress 8 Full or Upgrade – Even BOGO (themactrack.com)
InDesign and Windows 7 (blogs.adobe.com)

Also posted in Adobe | Tagged Adobe, Adobe Creative Suite, Adobe Systems, CS4, Design Premium, Design Standard, Desktop Publishing, install, languages, troubleshooting | 3 Comments

Planet and solar system tutorial

By Paul | Published: November 16, 2009

My guest tutorial on how to create a planet and a solar system in Xara Xtreme 5 is published (Nov 15th) at XaraXone.
Especially the steps on how to make the starry background is rather brilliant if I may say so myself.

An additional explanation about the background on page 4 and 5 could be in place: If I did not make the snowy bitmap a black and white contone, I would not be able to use the color fill profile to adjust the strong contrast that creates the starry effect.

If you have read my previous posts you probable know by now that my favorite work horse for digitally created images is Xara Xtreme and the images made are in theory vector images, but in real life it is more of a hybrid between vector and bitmaps. And this tutorial is in theory a vector image where I have used a couple of bitmaps as color fills. If you do not have Xara Xtreme you can download a trial version here. Could be interesting for all you Illustrator users to compare and test.

Technorati Tags: tutorial, Xara Xtreme, planet, how to, space, solar system, stars

Also posted in Useful things, Xara Xtreme | Tagged how to, planet, solar system, space, stars, tutorial, Xara Xtreme | 1 Comment

Solving Adobe CS3 install problem on Windows Vista

By Paul | Published: October 30, 2008

Finally, after some searching on the internet I found the solution to my problem with installing Adobe CS3 Design Premium on my new Windows Vista workstation. My problem was that when I started the installation a progress window appeared and then within a second disappeared, resulting in a failed installation. No error messages or anything!

I found the solution at the Adobe forums in this thread, and here are the helping steps (thanks to Phil Sadler):

Manually register the jscript.dll file.

On Windows Vista32:

1. Choose Start > All Programs > Accessories.
2. Right-click the Command icon, choose Run As Administrator, and authenticate.
3. Navigate to Windows\System32.
4. At the prompt, type regsvr32 jscript.dll and press Enter.
5. When a dialog box with the message “DllRegisterServer in jscript.dll succeeded” appears, click OK.

On Windows Vista64:

1. Choose Start > All Programs > Accessories.
2. Right-click the Command icon, choose Run As Administrator, and authenticate.
3. Navigate to Windows\SysWow64.
4. At the prompt, type regsvr32 jscript.dll and press Enter.
5. When a dialog box with the message “DllRegisterServer in jscript.dll succeeded” appears, click OK.

Note! I was trying to install the CS3 package on a Vista64 system, and of course I didn’t read the instruction well enough the first time. The thing is that there is a system32 folder in Vista64 as well, and did the Vista32 steps instead of going to the SysWow64 folder. Well, of course it didn’t do the trick and got me a bit frustrated, until I re-read the solutions (I found similar solutions on other places) and noticed the SysWow64 thing.

Also, just to be on the safe side I copied the installation folder from the DVD to my harddrive and did the following steps:

1. Copy the “Adobe CS3″ folder from the installation CD to your harddrive.

2. From the harddrive copy, open the folder “resources\common\scripts”.

3. Right-click on the file “ContainerProxy.js”, click “Open With…”, and select Notepad.

4. With the file open in Notepad, click Edit (from the top menu), then “Go To…”.

5. In the “Line Number” box, type 1102, and press Enter. This will take you to line #1102.

6. Locate the “SetSessionInitialized” variable as follows.

7. Look on the screen for the line “jsonObj = _jsonToObject(window.external.SetSessionInitialized(initValue));”.

8. Delete “window.external.”, i.e. the line becomes “jsonObj = _jsonToObject(SetSessionInitialized(initValue));”.

9. Save the file.

10. Go back to the harddrive parent folder “Adobe CS3″ and run the Setup.exe.

After this the installation went fine. In cases like this I cannot help wondering who to blame: The first part with jscript.dll points at Microsoft, but on the other hand it is something Adobe should be aware of (they do test their product before shipping, don’t they?)!

Also posted in Adobe | Tagged CS3, installation, jscript.dll, problem, SysWow64, troubleshooting, Vista, Vista64, Windows | 2 Comments

The 30 Day Challenge 2008

By Paul | Published: May 21, 2008

The fun is about to start again, the annual Thirty Day Challenge! So what is the thirty day challenge (30DC), you may ask? Well, in nutshell it is about making $10 online. For a full 30 days Ed Dale and Dan Raine are going to show exactly how to start your own internet business and generate your first income online without spending any money.
I see myself as an illustrator and cartoonist, and marketing is sometimes a very difficult part for me. I joined the challenge last year and didn’t really make it ($10) within the 30 day time frame, but I learned tons about marketing techniques – how to optimize your web pages, to study the competition, using free but effective tools and a lot more! So the 30DC is not merely for experienced internet marketers but for every newbie out there who sees the internet as another channel and possibility to sell his or hers stuff (or others for that matter).
The last years material is probably out there still, but I suspect it will be replaced with new material when the pre-season starts June 1st, so you better hurry over to the 30DC site and sign up to get the old stuff for free, and get ready for this years challenge.

PS. Yes, I eventually made $10! Actually I made even more (no, not any “six figure sales” as you often read about in spam and sales letters, but barely a three figure total – but enough to show that the techniques work) during six months.