Some time ago, I purchased an upgrade to Adobe Acrobat Professional, version 7. The installer didn’t ask for the previous version’s serial number, as most do, but rather asked me to locate the older version of the software on my hard drive. So I pointed the installer at version 6, completed the installation/registration, and then proceeded to remove version 6 from my hard drive.
Here were are now, about a year or so later, and I’ve migrated to a new Powerbook. First launch of Acrobat 7, and I’m asked to enter my serial number, and … once again, locate the version 6 software, which, of course, is no longer on my machine.
Fortunately, I kept a copy of version 6 in an archive, but what in the world is one to do in the case you no longer have the older version around (which I could easily imagine someone deleting)?
If I remember correctly, when I last installed Acrobat 7 Pro after a clean system reinstall, I was able to insert my old Acrobat 4 CD (the first version I purchased) and it accepted that instead of finding the application on my drive.
I don’t always agree with a lot of things Adobe but getting serial numbers back is one thing that they are very good at. Last year I had a hard drive crash and had to get all my serial numbers back (and most of them hadn’t been updated in 4 years) and a phone call was all it took. It did take awhile to search their database and find the right registration data as I had also registered some software from places I’d worked but they did find it and were very pleasant in the process.
Another option is to login to adobe.com and I think you can get your serial numbers sent to you this way as well.
April, it’s not the serial number that was the problem. I have a history of all my serial numbers on Adobe products. The product was that the Acrobat 7 installer wouldn’t install unless you had resident on your hard drive an old version of the software running.
Last time I installed an Adobe upgrade, I think it was the Creative Suite, it also asked me to locate a previously installed version. But since I had none (it was after a clean install), I clicked Cancel and then I had the choice of either go back to locating the previous version, enter its serial number or insert the CD. I found that nice.
The Acrobat 7 Pro, Installer presents you with the option of stopping, so that the user can either 1> manually locate the old installation or CD, or 2> Enter in a serial number from the previous version.
Sadly, when you click stop, only option 1 is available.