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dmerger

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Upgrade to CS4 from CS?
« on: May 20, 2010, 10:10:26 am »

1. I have Photoshop CS. I'm not eligible to upgrade to CS5.  B&H still has upgrades to CS4 listed on its web site.  Can I upgrade to CS4 from CS?

2. If so, can I then at some future time upgrade to CS5 or maybe some later version of Photoshop?

3. Does CS4 include both a 32 bit and a 64 bit version?  If so, could I install both versions on my computer?  I'm considering using two hard drives and installing Windows 7 64 bit on one hard drive and Windows XP Pro 32 bit on another hard drive. Is that a possibility?  If so, I would then boot from whichever hard drive I needed.  I have two printers and two scanners (including the original Minolta 5400).  I doubt that I can find 64 bit drivers for all my existing printers and scanners, which is why I'm considering using both windows operating systems.  My main reason to use Windows 7 64 bit is the abitity to access more RAM when using Photoshop.
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Dean Erger

Mark D Segal

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« Reply #1 on: May 20, 2010, 10:31:38 am »

Quote from: dmerger
1. I have Photoshop CS. I'm not eligible to upgrade to CS5.  B&H still has upgrades to CS4 listed on its web site.  Can I upgrade to CS4 from CS?

2. If so, can I then at some future time upgrade to CS5 or maybe some later version of Photoshop?

3. Does CS4 include both a 32 bit and a 64 bit version?  If so, could I install both versions on my computer?  I'm considering using two hard drives and installing Windows 7 64 bit on one hard drive and Windows XP Pro 32 bit on another hard drive. Is that a possibility?  If so, I would then boot from whichever hard drive I needed.  I have two printers and two scanners (including the original Minolta 5400).  I doubt that I can find 64 bit drivers for all my existing printers and scanners, which is why I'm considering using both windows operating systems.  My main reason to use Windows 7 64 bit is the abitity to access more RAM when using Photoshop.

Best thing is to call Adobe customer support to get exactly correct answers on up-grades and licenses.

From my previous discussions with them and what I've read, I SEEM TO RECALL (i.e. not 100% certain):
- you can only up-grade from either 2 or 3 versions back, so I suspect CS to CS4 would not be an eligible up-grade option.
- if you buy Windows 7 Professional, it has XP emulation, so that MAY (but again not sure) solve the problem of drivers for legacy hardware and save you the trouble of running a separate drive, but what I'm not sure of is whether that XP emulation can happens in 32 or 64 bit mode if you have the 64-bit version of Windows 7, and whether the drivers in question would therefore work under XP emulation. You can't go wrong trying it if you are buying Win7-64 bit anyhow for the extra RAM access.
- CS4 for PC was available in both 32 and 64 bit editions for PC. I' not sure whether the same serial number would work on both editions, but that is a question best addressed to Adobe.

My responses here aren't conclusive because I'm in the midst of the same research. I want to do a change-over to either Win7 64 or Mac OSX 64 (whole new ballgame) because I too just need higher RAM access, and I also have driver issues to deal with. I do have CS4 32 bit now, and I believe I can get the up-grade price to CS5 64 bit without hassle, but I'll check with Adobe anyhow.

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Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
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Les Sparks

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« Reply #2 on: May 20, 2010, 11:10:17 am »

I have win7 pro 64 bit. XP runs as a virtual computer not emulation. If you have programs, hardware, and drivers that work in XP, then they work in the version of XP running under win7 pro.  I have an HP printer, for example, that HP did not update the drivers for Vista or Win 7 and thus lose functionality under Win7. When I use the printer under XP running under Win7, I get all the functionality available from the HP printer drivers.

Win 7 pro provides a fully licensed version of XP. If you have Win7 64, then you get XP 64bit.

The whole scheme works very well for me. PhotoShop CS4 64 bit, for example, works just fine under Win7 64 bit or the XP 64 bit.

When you run in XP mode, you can see all your files and run the programs that are installed under Win 7.
Les
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Mark D Segal

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« Reply #3 on: May 20, 2010, 11:19:43 am »

Quote from: Les Sparks
I have win7 pro 64 bit. XP runs as a virtual computer not emulation. If you have programs, hardware, and drivers that work in XP, then they work in the version of XP running under win7 pro.  Les

Thanks Les, very good to know. One question on the statement extracted above. Say one is now using XP 32 bit (as I am and same for the OP), and one buys Win7-64 with the bundled XP-64. Do you know whether the 32-bit peripherals and software versions which work on 32 bit XP also wotk with 64 bit XP in Win7 (i.e. is XP-64 backward compatible for drivers and software supporting 32 bit XP) ?
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Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
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AndrewKulin

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« Reply #4 on: May 20, 2010, 06:27:13 pm »

Quote from: Mark D Segal
Thanks Les, very good to know. One question on the statement extracted above. Say one is now using XP 32 bit (as I am and same for the OP), and one buys Win7-64 with the bundled XP-64. Do you know whether the 32-bit peripherals and software versions which work on 32 bit XP also wotk with 64 bit XP in Win7 (i.e. is XP-64 backward compatible for drivers and software supporting 32 bit XP) ?

Mark:

I currently run XP-64 Pro and it lets me run both 64-bit and 32-bit applications.  64 bit applications get saved/installed in the "Program Files" directory while 32-bit applications get installed in a directory called "Program Files (x86)"

So I expect it should work out okay.
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Mark D Segal

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« Reply #5 on: May 20, 2010, 06:38:29 pm »

Quote from: AndrewKulin
Mark:

I currently run XP-64 Pro and it lets me run both 64-bit and 32-bit applications.  64 bit applications get saved/installed in the "Program Files" directory while 32-bit applications get installed in a directory called "Program Files (x86)"

So I expect it should work out okay.

Hi Andrew,

Good to know it's backward compatible for the applications. Do you have any peripherals (scanner, printers, monitors) which operated on 32-bit XP or Vista before and now need to operate on Win7 64 bit? Are they cooperating also, or did you need to find new drivers? For hardware it can be a pain because not all hardware drivers get up-graded/updated.
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Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
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stephenmarsh

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Upgrade to CS4 from CS?
« Reply #6 on: May 20, 2010, 09:57:41 pm »

Quote from: dmerger
1. I have Photoshop CS. I'm not eligible to upgrade to CS5.  B&H still has upgrades to CS4 listed on its web site.  Can I upgrade to CS4 from CS?

Best to double check with Adobe first, however this "old" post seems to indicate yes...and I did!

http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2010/03/if_yo...to_upgrade.html


Regards,


Stephen Marsh

http://members.ozemail.com.au/~binaryfx/
http://prepression.blogspot.com/
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Mark D Segal

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« Reply #7 on: May 20, 2010, 10:03:10 pm »

Quote from: stephenmarsh
Best to double check with Adobe first, however this "old" post seems to indicate yes...and I did!

http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2010/03/if_yo...to_upgrade.html


Regards,


Stephen Marsh

http://members.ozemail.com.au/~binaryfx/
http://prepression.blogspot.com/

I'd say that's still reliable advice Stephen, and having read it I recall the policy is indeed 3-back, so CS4 would still qualify on the basis of CS, but certainly no harm checking with Adobe, especially whether having done that, CS5 can be piggy-backed as an up-grade on CS4 - should be, but worth asking.
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Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
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AndrewKulin

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« Reply #8 on: May 20, 2010, 10:15:11 pm »

Quote from: Mark D Segal
Hi Andrew,

Good to know it's backward compatible for the applications. Do you have any peripherals (scanner, printers, monitors) which operated on 32-bit XP or Vista before and now need to operate on Win7 64 bit? Are they cooperating also, or did you need to find new drivers? For hardware it can be a pain because not all hardware drivers get up-graded/updated.

Mark:

I have not yet switched over to Win 7.  But with XP-64 I did have to upload 64-bit drivers to get the hardware up and running okay.  In fact I tried out XP-64 shortly after it was released (6 months to a year after release) and driver support for hardware I had at thate time sucked and I reverted back to XP-32 bit until a couple of years ago (and driver support was fully up to speed by then).  As I am sure you are aware, hardware vendors often won't bother updating drivers for obsolete equipment (i.e., stuff that is 6 months old or older?  )

Bottom line:  I do not know the answer to your question about driver support as it relates to Windows 7.

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Mark D Segal

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« Reply #9 on: May 20, 2010, 10:50:33 pm »

Thanks Andrew, this is exactly the kind of thing which worries me. Anyone contemplating an upgrade from 32 to 64-bit for the good reason of accessing more than 3 GB of RAM will really need to do their homework on device drivers.
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Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
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Les Sparks

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« Reply #10 on: May 21, 2010, 10:03:23 am »

Quote from: Mark D Segal
Thanks Les, very good to know. One question on the statement extracted above. Say one is now using XP 32 bit (as I am and same for the OP), and one buys Win7-64 with the bundled XP-64. Do you know whether the 32-bit peripherals and software versions which work on 32 bit XP also wotk with 64 bit XP in Win7 (i.e. is XP-64 backward compatible for drivers and software supporting 32 bit XP) ?
XP64 runs all the 32bit programs and drivers that I have just fine.
Les
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Mark D Segal

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« Reply #11 on: May 21, 2010, 10:05:30 am »

So there's hope. That's encouraging.
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Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
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Farmer

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« Reply #12 on: May 21, 2010, 08:54:42 pm »

Quote from: Mark D Segal
So there's hope. That's encouraging.

I've been running a 64bit OS since Vista beta.  Obviously there were some issues initially, but I can't recal the last one and pretty much from the public beta of Win 7 x64 it's been very smooth in that regard.
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Phil Brown

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« Reply #13 on: May 22, 2010, 02:48:05 am »

Quote from: dmerger
1. I have Photoshop CS. I'm not eligible to upgrade to CS5.  B&H still has upgrades to CS4 listed on its web site.  Can I upgrade to CS4 from CS?

2. If so, can I then at some future time upgrade to CS5 or maybe some later version of Photoshop?

From speaking with a salesperson at Adobe, yes to both.
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dmerger

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« Reply #14 on: May 23, 2010, 01:44:33 pm »

Thanks for all the helpful replies.  By the way, just to be clear, I’m now using Windows XP Pro 32 bit and considering adding/switching to Windows 7 Pro 64 bit.

It seems fairly clear that I can upgrade to CS4 from CS. In addition the answers given above, I found this product description for the CS4 upgrade on the Amazon web site: "Licensed owners of Photoshop CS3, Photoshop CS2, or Photoshop CS can upgrade to Adobe Photoshop CS4 for special pricing."

I also confirmed that my printers are Windows 7 64 bit compatible. Maybe my scanners will work with that OS also, but I’m not optimistic. I now know that Windows 7 includes Windows XP mode, but read that it may not work for 32 bit device drivers (see the second link below), such as drivers for my Minolta 5400 scanner. Of course, I can try it. If it doesn’t work, I don’t see why I can’t also install Windows XP Pro on a second hard drive and boot from it when I want to scan. Does anyone see a problem with that solution?

By the way, here are a couple of links explaining Windows Virtual PC:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/support/faq.aspx
http://www.techsupportalert.com/content/ho...pplications.htm

Les and Mark, also see the last question and answer on the Microsoft site linked above.  It states “Does Windows Virtual PC support 64-bit Windows XP as a guest operating system?  No. Windows Virtual PC and Windows XP Mode was designed to help small business with application compatibility from Windows XP to Windows 7. The majority of business applications currently run on 32-bit versions of Windows XP.”

I read that CS4 automatically installs a 32 bit and a 64 bit version.  In addition to having CS4 installed on my Windows 7 hard drive, would it work to also install a second copy of CS4 (32 bit) or my old copy of CS on my second, Windows XP hard drive?  I expect that I’d use such second copy of CS4 or CS almost exclusively when scanning, but do all my editing under CS4 64 bit.
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Dean Erger

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« Reply #15 on: May 23, 2010, 02:43:16 pm »

Dean,

Thanks very much for all that. It's helpful. I'm going to either buy a Mac or upgrade to Windows 7-64 from Windows XP-32, so this discussion is very relevant just now, and I suspect I'm not alone. I went to the first Microsoft link you provided, and in particular the last item in the FAQ, which I think is the most critical one. Read by itself one wouldn' suspect a problem using our scanners and printers, but then your second link paints the opposite expectation - they won't work if they need 32-bit drivers. Good job sleuthing that one. Unless the hardware suppliers or others are up-grading drivers to 64-bit, it seems that maintaining a parallel 32-bit XP capability is perhaps the only option.
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Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
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Les Sparks

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« Reply #16 on: May 23, 2010, 10:29:37 pm »

Based on my experience with Win7 64 Pro and the XP64 that comes with it I find that  any hardware that I have that requires 32 bit XP drivers works fine in  XP64 running on the Win7 virtual computer. For example: my old Epson Scanner(1650) works fine with the XP 32 bit drivers, my old HP 7960 printer which uses 32 bit XP drivers works with full functionality under PS and Qimage (both 32 bit programs) (the driver was only partially updated for Vista), a Canon Digital8 camcorder that uses XP32 bit drivers also works fine. CS4 32 bit and all my plug ins work fine, several old custom programs written for 32 bit XP work fine. Video editing software that I have that was written for XP 32bit works fine and communicates fine with camcorders connected via firewire.

For some reason Microsoft has never promoted Win7 pro for non enterprise users. From the very beginning MS has said Win7 pros XP option was intended for the enterprise (guess that's where the big bucks are).  I really don't understand why, because home users are likely to have old hardware that is out of date but works fine as long as you can use the XP drivers. I think MS' weasel words are intended to avoid hassle supporting old hardware.

Les
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Mark D Segal

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« Reply #17 on: May 23, 2010, 10:32:47 pm »

Thanks Les, really good to hear of this experience.
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Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
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Les Sparks

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« Reply #18 on: May 24, 2010, 02:42:20 pm »

One thing that you need to be aware of with XP running on the Win7 virtual computer is that you'll need to make sure that your monitor and printer profiles are kept up to date on the XP system. This means (at least in my case) profiling the monitor under win7 and then copying the monitor profile from the WIN 7 Windows/system32/spool/drivers/color folder to the XP Windows/system32/spool/drivers/color. No big thing, but it can be a surprise when you can't find the current profile.

Also, at least in my case, my profiling hardware doesn't work under XP so all profiling has to be done under Win7 and then copied to XP.
I use Spyder2Pro.

Les
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Mark D Segal

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« Reply #19 on: May 24, 2010, 02:56:37 pm »

Good to know, thanks again.
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Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
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