Adobe Creative suite from PPC to Intel

[just1nd20]

I work with a woman who is going back to school for graphic design. She bought a Powerbook 5yrs ago (approx) and thinks that when she buys a new macbook she will have to repurchase Adobe Creative Suite because the older version won't run on an intel mac. I'm new to macs and know nothing about graphic design software or the PPC/Intel application transfer. Thought I'd try helping her out by asking and maybe save her however many hundreds of dollars the software costs.

Thanks.

edit: don't know what exact version of the suite she has, only told me it is no longer getting software updates which I bet is true.

 

[chrismacguy]

I work with a woman who is going back to school for graphic design. She bought a Powerbook 5yrs ago (approx) and thinks that when she buys a new macbook she will have to repurchase Adobe Creative Suite because the older version won't run on an intel mac. I'm new to macs and know nothing about graphic design software or the PPC/Intel application transfer. Thought I'd try helping her out by asking and maybe save her however many hundreds of dollars the software costs.

Thanks.

edit: don't know what exact version of the suite she has, only told me it is no longer getting software updates which I bet is true.

She must've bought one of the very last PowerBooks then (They were discontinued in 2006). As far as Adobe CS goes, if she has I believe CS3 or newer (Id check with Adobe on that one), she can use the upgrade. Her Intel Mac will need to have a program called "Rosetta" installed, which it should do automatically on attempting to run a PowerPC application, so the Intel Mac can run PowerPC applications, then the old edition of the Creative Suite would need to be installed (and while it would run, it may well not be fantastic, and might even run better on her older PowerBook), a new edition of the Creative Suite is likely to be what shed be using in School (either CS5 or CS5.5), and could then be installed as an upgrade over the PowerPC version as a fully Intel install.

 

[just1nd20]

Thanks Chris. I'll let her know.

 

[42streetsdown]

It is important to note that rosetta support is going to be drop in Lion though.
if it's CS3, i'm pretty sure there is a universal binary. If there is i think the same serial would work on the different binary

 

[cocacolakid]

As Chrismacguy points out, (and an article on Low End Mac) she'll need an Intel Mac running 10.6 or 10.5. Rosetta being dropped in 10.7 Lion is going to cause a lot of problems for people who have upgraded their expensive software from PPC only earlier versions, those upgrades will not work with 10.7.

I.E., if someone has Adobe CS2 and has paid a fortune to upgrade to CS5, neither of those versions can be installed on a Mac running 10.7, even though CS5 by itself can run on 10.7. The upgrade to CS5 requires CS2 to be installed first (or CS3 in the OP's example), and Lion will not allow those old PPC programs to be installed.

Perhaps Adobe/other manufacturer's help address this by allowing the purchased serial numbers to work with CS5/etc., or Apple changes their mind and includes Rosetta or at least offers a Rosetta app that can be purchased, but as of right now, there are a lot of people who will be left in the dark.

 

[cocacolakid]

It is important to note that rosetta support is going to be drop in Lion though.
if it's CS3, i'm pretty sure there is a universal binary. If there is i think the same serial would work on the different binary

Universal Binary's are not compatible with Lion. Any UB requires Rosetta to install because the binary itself has PPC code in it. You can see it now if you install Office 2008 on an Intel Mac with a fresh install of Snow Leopard. Rosetta is not included by default on Snow Leopard (but is compatible), so when you try to install any Universal Binary it tells you the first time that Rosetta is required to install the UB, in this example, Office 2008, and asks if you want to download and install Rosetta.

Low End Mac covered this in detail this week. It's going to create a gigantic headache for users.

 

[just1nd20]

I'll give that link a read, too.