What's wrong with CS3 and what's Adobe doing?

CS3 - the latest version of the industry-standard collection of software for design creatives - has issues with installing. And, given that the full Master Suite - containing software including Photoshop, InDesign and Dreamweaver - costs £2,313.58 from the Adobe online shop, it's not surprising that the internet is full of outrage.

I received my copy last weekend and set about installing it on my Vista machine. Four DVDs and 45 minutes later, I got an error message telling me that various components - including Acrobat, Photoshop and InDesign - had failed to install. A quick Google told me that I was not alone. Adobe's support forum is full of wails, while other sites have suggestions for fixes that range from the merely annoying - removing every single instance of Adobe software by hand from the Windows registry - to the nuclear: reinstalling the OS.

It's not just Windows users, either; Macheads are suffering, too. So what's wrong? Adobe says you can run into problems if you installed a trial version, while others suggest it's something to do with previous versions of Flash.

Adobe feels my pain. "We know how painful this is and will continue to closely monitor and respond to issues. We are also taking steps to ensure this doesn't happen in future," it said.

Unfortunately, it doesn't say what steps it's taking, but if you're thinking of installing any CS3 programs, you should visit its support website and search the Knowledgebase, which includes instructions on how to clean up your system.

After three attempts to install the suite, I gave up and reinstalled Vista. The very first thing I did once I was back up in Windows, even before going online, was to install CS3. And guess what? It worked.

by Kate Bevan