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G'day Steve
I had to uninstall 4.0 before installing 5.0, then again before installing 6.0,
because Adobe warns against trying to run different versions on the same
machine.
Actually what happened was that 4 and 5 can happily run on the one machine but through what I consider a mistake in the install/uninstall programs if you uninstalled 4 later it took out part of 4. I'm not sure if that applied to 3 and 4. In some Adobe notes I saw at the time they stated that, in effect, if you wanted to run 4 and 5 you had to remember to reinstall 5 after later removing 4, and if you didn't want that difficutly, then to remove 4 first. Hard to remember but I had the feeling that changed between the first 5 release and later updates.
With 6 they decided to get rid of that user problem and I believe they were more concerned about users unwittingly running into trouble than with users having both. Indeed it can be useful, if tricky, to have earlier versions of the Reader so you can check the effect of exported PDF.
With OEM versions, such as the reference to Microsoft ones, they often have narrower licences and more restrictions than full versions. I've even known cases where they (not Microsoft) encouraged dealers to sell low-cost OEM versions on their own, particularly when new versions were imminent.
So I would have to install 4.0 on a different machine, which I am sure would be against the EULA.
There again some companies have had licenses that allow a single user to load on both a desktop and notebook.
A formal request might work. Years ago I had a single-user dBase III and the license specifically said "not on a network". Knowing that when that version ran on a network only one user could access it at a time, I contacted the Australian agent and was given the go-ahead to put it up. The alternative would have been to legitimately have a PC off the network which multiple users could access, so it was pleasing they made a sensible decision that did not disadvantage them. And any time our access need increased we could buy a number of additoinal licenses.
But I have five licenses, so perhaps I am OK as long as no more than five versions are in use at any one time? I do not want to upgrade my other users until some of these issues are sorted out.
The easy option will be to hold one or more upgrades back. Adobe have long had a practice of upgrading without penalty, eg I upgraded Illustrator 1 to 7 at the 6 to 7 price. Even that was difficult since the license number of Illustrator 1 was embedded in the diskette and could only be found by installation. Anyone ever tried to install Windows 2 (expanded memory) on a Windows 3 (extended memory) machine? They agreed to accept a photocopy of the diskette.
I did notice they took a harder line with older Acrobat versions. Wonder if they will do that with other products?
I think others have probably mentioned that Acrobat 6 Pro requires WinXP and that will need future upgrades to be mixed with version cross-grades as well.
I'm not sure if this happens over your way but Corel sell at academic prices to seniors (over 60s). It would be nice if Adobe and Microsoft did that. If you look at Adobe academic pricing it is not a simple percentage of the full version price but relates to market penetration of each product.
Regards Merv Leeding
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