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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.

"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.

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.

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.

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.

"Expressing your opinions in respectful ways will avoid people (or me) from flaming you." In what way is my post DISrespectful?

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.

"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.

"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.

"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

"I have been holding off in buying Adobe's creative suite until they release CS3, for this very reason." This is typical for Adobe, and I don't know why Paul should be surprised. They did the exact same thing with the Mac version of Creative Suite for the Intel Macs. It's not "dropping the ball", it's doing business without sucking up to Microsoft (or Apple, for that matter). "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. " Oh, puhleeez. While I'll agree that Microsoft never saw a market it didn't want to dominate, they're about as much of a threat to Adobe's dominance as OS X is to the Windows monopoly.

Rowr. Someone got up on the wrong side of mom's bed!

"Someone got up on the wrong side of mom's bed!" sorry to disappoint, but your mom takes up the whole king-sized bed by herself - i was on the floor, using one of her overhang flabs as a blanket. XP

"Looks like you're never going to go back to compatibility, either." Not really. Vista is going to become the most popular OS in the world sooner or later and if someone decides not to make their software compatible with it, who is the loser? Not Microsoft. The consumer, to some extent, but the biggest loser is the maker of the software.

O/T: http://www.winsupersite.com/faq/windows_7.asp "Yes. Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1, codenamed "Fiji") will ship simultaneously with Windows Server "Longhorn" and will include a new kernel version that makes that release up to date with the kernel version in Longhorn. As such, we might consider Fiji a major release for a service pack: No previous service pack has ever included a major kernel update." According to Mary Jo Foley, Fiji is the next version of Windows Media Center. http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=335

As an Advertising Manager for an in-house agency I've personally been using Adobe products for many years now... Creative Suite, Video Collection, Etc. The Adobe suites keep growing, especially since the Macromedia acquisition and the upgrades keep getting more and more expensive. Plus, there's a lot of duplication between the suites. How many Adobe suites really need to include PhotoShop and/or Illustrator or some other program? Even Adobe's upgrades are getting expensive. It's at a point where I need to spend $3,000+ per year to keep my software current yet Adobe can't be bothered to make even their current major programs compatible with Windows Vista? Sounds like simple greed to me! I'm not about to abandon my investment in Adobe software but I'm at a point where I'm going to start looking at other competitors' programs that I might migrate to in the future.

If MS has shareholders to answer to, then so does crappy Adobe. You can't blame them for forcing their customers to upgrade to the latest version. Contrary to popular belief, software is not free...

"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. " I assume this is ODF v. PDF? I gave up on Adobe a long time ago. I have an ancient copy of Acrobat 6 Pro to create PDF docs and that's it. And yes, it works with Vista, doesn't integrate with IE7, but it's functional under Vista itself. Adobe and Nero are becoming the bloatware kings of the decade, somehow publishing and cd burning became a 50 application 10GB+ affair with no forseeable advantage in usability. For anyone who sees MS as the icon for becoming lax on your laurels, I say turn two those two. No competition has hurt them the most.

I've been using Paint .NET as of late instead of Photoshop inside of Parallels. http://www.getpaint.net/index2.html It's not for everyone, pro users will always want more powerful tools but it is a phenomenal freeware application.

Paint.NET and Photo Filtre, together make for a pretty powerful tool. I wonder why MS abandoned Paint.NET. They should've offered it as a PowerToy or something.

I hate to bring Apple into this argument...but how many of you were using Mac System 7,8, or 9 when OS X came out? I believe that there was quite a bit of teeth gnashing regarding compatibility at that time, too. How is this different? lotsa, I know that you understand, you're back to being decent to discuss things with, and I for one, appreciate it...this is more aimed at stevejobs. --tayme

"I wonder why MS abandoned Paint.NET. They should've offered it as a PowerToy or something." Paint.NET has not been abandoned. A major new version, V3.0, was released at the end of January, and newer versions are still being developed. See www.getpaint.net. Paint.NET started as a collaborative project between Microsoft and some Univ. of Washington students. Since then, the main student behind Paint.NET has joined Microsoft full-time, but it appears he (and others) still put a significant amount of time into it. As to Adobe... it is entirely their fault if their apps don't work. It's just like the Intuit QuickBooks fiasco that was talked about a few weeks ago, where Intuit never bothered to make their apps work correctly for limited users in XP, and now it's coming back to bite them in Vista. I'm guessing Adobe's apps are in the same boat. Did Adobe ever seek Windows XP or 2000 certification of their apps? My guess is they didn't. Even if they don't go for certification, they should at least aim to follow the guidelines that the certifications enforce. Would have saved them all this trouble.

"Adobe and Nero are becoming the bloatware kings of the decade, somehow publishing and cd burning became a 50 application 10GB+ affair with no forseeable advantage in usability." agreed. as for the Nero part, i don't even bother with CD burning suites anymore - Vista [Home Premium/Ultimate] has Windows DVD Maker now, data CD/DVD's can be burned through the shell, photo discs can be burned through Windows Photo Gallery, music can be burned in Windows Media Player, and backups can be handled with Windows Backup and Restore Center or Windows Live OneCare. the only other program i use is CloneCD for making disc-to-disc copies, alongside Virtual CloneDrive for mounting ISO's. XP

@Tayme It was not a big deal at all going from 9 to X, . Rosetta was in place and everything worked well. I don't get what the big fuss is over this topic - Adobe will release their Vista line, iTunes will arrive and all will be good in Windows land. When SP1 comes along I will make the move to Vista. We all know that early adopters have to wait. Nothing new here. So what the big deal?

@Yawn! - That's my point exactly. Vista, like earlier versions of Windows, has Compatibility Mode in order to run such programs...Same concept as Rosetta. Like you said...if you want to be on the cutting(some call it bleeding) edge, there is a price to pay... --tayme

I have had vista prior to its release and I am running the most current build, I am not having any major issues, it works great. I also have Adobe CS2 installed and use it daily, would it be nice if Adobe came out with hotixes to correct the minor problems (yes) but like a number of other application vendors they are choosing to play the game and make their existing customers pay the price. Over the years folks have complain about how insecure Windows are, but then Microsoft releases a new more securer OS (I know, I know yet to be determine) and folks are complaining about that, cannot have it both ways, the thing that cracks me up is, when an application crashes it is a Windows problem, I have seen so many poorly written apps with a number of security holes and no one is complaining about these, and I am not saying MS is perfect, but what I will give them is that they try and address the issues, and will release updates. Oh and by the way I have a MAC as well, it is a great personal laptop but try to put it on the domain or try to get Apple to fix its problems with Kerberos well that’s a totally different story. I expect that most vendors will be releasing updates in the next couple months, but for the few who want to jam it to their existing customer base well they need to look at who is paying their salary. Sorry for the rant, Bob Smith

Any Adobe-suite-using production house (newspapers, magazines, video, movies, music, etc.) that considers their work mission critical is probably not running Vista. No one wants to put the production of their products on the line to participate in the Microsoft Windows Vista Pre-SP1 Public Beta Test 2007. By the time Vista SP1 ships, the CS3 suite will already have been out for some time and will have already become the new industry standard version. People currently running Vista and the Adobe CS2 (or lower) suite, are likely people who dabble in Photoshop for personal amusement/forum images and other, non-full time, non-professional purposes. Many likely probably pirated their copy of Adobe software.

"Any Adobe-suite-using production house that considers their work mission critical is probably not running Vista." that stands to reason, as most will already have computer systems in place. companies upgrade on their own schedule. when Windows XP support runs out (as well as free updates and such), then it'll be logical to upgrade to Windows Vista. as for now, any new computers they buy will ship with Windows Vista unless they have special contacts with computer builders to still get XP. i, as a System Builder, can only get XP copies until the end of March, and then only XP Pro. after that, customers would need to purchase Windows Vista, then get Software Assurance and get downgrade media for XP directly from Microsoft, which will cost them more in the end. "People currently running Vista and the Adobe CS2 (or lower) suite, are likely people who dabble in Photoshop for personal amusement/forum images and other, non-full time, non-professional purposes. Many likely probably pirated their copy of Adobe software." now that doesn't even contain a shred of truth. XP