Adobe Drops the Ball on Vista Compatibility

Adobe this week informed its customers that they will need to pay for new versions of many of its products if they expect to run them glitch-free on Windows Vista. The reason? Adobe has no plans at all to ensure that many of its most expensive currently shipping products work properly with Microsoft's new latest operating system.

"All Adobe products available as of January 30, 2007 were released before Windows Vista became publicly available and so have not been fully designed for or tested on this new operating system," Adobe notes in a message posted to its Web site. "However, many of those products run under Window Vista with minimal issues."

While some Adobe products, like Photoshop Elements 5 and Adobe Reader 8 were or will soon be updated for full Vista compatibility, most of the company's professional products will not be updated for free. "Adobe is already preparing to release the next versions of its professional creative products, including Adobe Photoshop, InDesign, Dreamweaver, Flash, and After Effects, in the Spring and Summer 2007 and does not plan to issue updates to current versions of those products for Windows Vista compatibility."

In other words, users of these applications will need to pay for the next versions of these products in order to achieve full Vista compatibility. Many of these products cost several hundred dollars apiece.

Critics are charging Adobe with harming customers as payback for Microsoft's decision to compete directly with Adobe in various markets, including Web publishing, document creation, and high-end graphics. Adobe, to date, has been silent about these charges.

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What an incredibly *smart* move on Adobe's part! As Apple has already provided its own compelling creative consumer products for Macs AND as Microsoft is rolling out its own promising consumer and professional creative products, Adobe decides to screw over its vast userbase by abandoning its existing products to possibly snub WinVista.

??!

I haven't seen this level of brilliance since Netscape started charging $80 for its browser right after IE hit the market for free.

mwrisner March 20, 2007 (Article Rating:

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"Critics are charging Adobe with harming customers as payback for Microsoft's decision to compete directly with Adobe in various markets, including Web publishing, document creation, and high-end graphics. Adobe, to date, has been silent about these charges."

Who are these critics besides you, Paul? This is what Adobe ALWAYS does.

They release products on their own schedule, and any major OS updates in the interim means that users will have to wait for the next major upgrade.

And it won't cost hundreds of dollars: these users will be UPGRADING. Usually $99 for Photoshop, etc... (Which is a much more negligible cost, of course, versus upgrading to Vista.)

How is anyone screwed, by the way, when they are precisely the users that are more concerned about upgrading CS rather than Windows? The only way Adobe users would be screwed is if the next CS required them to upgrade to Vista.

Paul's Fact Checker March 20, 2007 (Article Rating:

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Adobe is under *no* obligation to make its existing apps Vista compatible. With that said, it would have been nice of Adobe update those apps for Vista compatibility, like many other companies.

I have been holding off in buying Adobe's creative suite until they release CS3, for this very reason.

NateB2 March 20, 2007 (Article Rating:

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Maybe if Vista didn't break everything, it wouldn't be an issue.

Why should Adobe have to go back through all their old products because Microsoft can't make an operating system that works? Should they waste time patching Acrobat Reader 5 because someone wants to run the latest and, um, greatest version of Windows, but also ancient Adobe software?

If you're daring enough to risk Vista, then don't complain when it doesn't work right.

stevejobs March 20, 2007 (Article Rating:

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Well, acting as "Paul's Fact Checker" fact checker, I found that Photoshop CS2 Upgrade goes for $165 at NewEgg. The "Elements" packages go for $99 on an upgrade. And where's the "fact" that an upgrade will work in a new OS? I'm not saying it won't, but where's the fact checker's evidence? Additionally, where's your evidence that people who use CS software are not interested in WinVista? I use Adobe software, and I like Vista. I highly doubt I'm the only one, otherwise Adobe would not have posted the info on its Web site for only my benefit.

I get agitated by those who are blindly critical of any journalist and who use Comments sections to bash that journalist. Especially the bashers that set up accounts that hide their names with infantile pseudonyms.

Yeah, I know I bashed back. But the bonch-types need to get a life. I don't understand people who seek to read things they know will erk them. In what other parts of you life do you act like this? Do your neighbors like to talk to you? Or do even the grocery checkout people pick up on the type of person you are?

Expressing your opinions in respectful ways will avoid people (or me) from flaming you.

mwrisner March 20, 2007 (Article Rating:

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"Expressing your opinions in respectful ways will avoid people (or me) from flaming you."

In what way is my post DISrespectful?

Paul's Fact Checker March 20, 2007 (Article Rating:

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Running anything released before Jan. 30, 2007 on Vista is just as risky as sleeping with Waethorn's mother. You never know what you're gonna get.

stevejobs March 20, 2007 (Article Rating:

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"Why should Adobe have to go back through all their old products because Microsoft can't make an operating system that works?"

Let me rephrase your question: "Why should Microsoft continually put backwards compatibility hacks in Windows so vendors (like Adobe), can use undocumented and other unsupported API's in their products?"

There. Fixed it for you.

I can verify with mwrisner that the upgrade for a single Adobe product is around $150 or so, depending on the product.

I use Vista as my main OS, and I love it. I am *never* going back to XP.

NateB2 March 20, 2007 (Article Rating:

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"I use Vista as my main OS, and I love it. I am *never* going back to XP."

Looks like you're never going to go back to compatibility, either.

How are products that worked perfectly fine before suddenly using "undocumented API's"? Microsoft made them, didn't think ahead, and they weren't forward-compatible. Now we blame the vendors for using what they were given? Why use the Vista API's now? They're just going to be broken by Longhorn or whatever else comes along next when MS screws up again.

stevejobs March 20, 2007 (Article Rating:

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"Adobe decides to screw over its vast userbase by abandoning its existing products to possibly snub WinVista."

"I use Adobe software, and I like Vista."

Adobe is playing the town fool with this latest endevour. it's too bad too, because unlike mwrisner, i will no longer be a continuing Adobe customer after CS2 - i'm switching to using Expression Design, which combines aspect of both pixel and vector based image creation and editing, and even the Beta is more stable than CS2. the UI is much more streamlined too. i hope that Adobe's half-baked strategy ends up backfiring on them.

"In what way is my post DISrespectful?"

if you don't know, you don't deserve to have it explained to you.

"But the bonch-types need to get a life. I don't understand people who seek to read things they know will erk them. In what other parts of you life do you act like this? Do your neighbors like to talk to you? Or do even the grocery checkout people pick up on the type of person you are?"

agreed!

*directed at stevejobs* - obviously in your case pal, your momma obviously hasn't weened you off dry-sucking her shriveled up prune-teets yet. get a life - us real men are trying to have a serious discussion here. go back to sitting in your high-chair at the kiddy table.

XP

Waethorn March 20, 2007 (Article Rating:

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