All CS1 apps quit when I try to launch them.

Question

Hello
I have been told by Adobe that they cannot provide any direct assistance to me. I have tried to explain to them that I don't believe I have a technical problem with the suite, as I think it may be a licensing issue. The problem I am having is that whenever I try to launch one of the CS1 apps, I get the following error message,
b "The application (...) CS quit unexpectedly. Mac OS X and other applications are not affected.
b Click Relaunch to launch the application again. Click Report to see more details or send a
b report to Apple."
My system is a Dual 2GHz PowerPC G5. I have 3.5GB of RAM. The Creative Suite is installed in the Applications Folder of my startup drive, which is the original 160GB drive. I also have installed a 1TB drive in the second internal bay. Firmware is up to date and I am running Mac OS X (10.5.6). I have had CS1 for about 5 years and it is registered in my name.
The problem started around the time that I downloaded a trial version of Illustrator CS4, about 1-2 months ago. I'm not necessarily linking the two together because I can't remember if I have successfully launched a CS1 app since installing Illustrator CS4. Around that time, I also repaired disk permissions in an attempt to sort out a problem I was having with the optical drive and I am fairly sure that I haven't been able to launch a CS1 app since then. Again, I don't know whether these could be related.
What I tried to explain to Adobe was that, I used to use 3 or 4 different user accounts on my Mac. I had one set up for graphics, one for music etc.. I have only installed CS1 on this computer but it occurred to me that by using the suite under different user accounts, it may have appeared that I had installed it on more than the allowed maximum of two computers. Also, I have more than once had to reinstall the operating system. At least once was an 'erase and install' and one an 'archive and install'. I wondered if this might also make it appear that I had installed the suite on more than two computers. I have since read somewhere that if you want to transfer your licence to someone else, you have to deactivate the serial number from preferences, which is something that I have never done.
Here is a list of what I have done to try and eliminate possible causes:
- relaunched the apps after the first failed launch, to launch them with their default preference sets.
- manually uninstalled the entire suite, including preference files, caches, fonts etc., as per the instructions given on the Adobe Support Website.
- reinstalled the suite
- repaired disk permissions
- deleted all printer and scanner drivers
- set up a second user account to verify that the apps will not launch from a different account
- booted in safe mode and tried to launch CS apps from there to eliminate issues with login
items or kext files
- disabled all non-system fonts and deleted any duplicates
- tried to launch the apps having removed all peripherals except mouse and keyboard
- reset PRAM and NVRAM
- run all open firmware and Mac OS X diagnostic tests to eliminate hardware issues
- completely reinstalled the operating system followed by a clean installation of the suite
None of these measures has solved the problem. If anyone could offer me any advice on this, I would be very grateful. Could it be a licencing issue and if so, what do I do about it? Adobe don't seem to want to know. Incidentally, Adobe Reader launches fine as does the trial version of InDesign CS4 that I've just downloaded.
If you have read this far, thank you for persevering.
Regards
Will Mackie

Answer 1

CS1 is not supported in Leopard if you had it working at some point you were lucky. Adobe does not plan on updating CS as it is an old version. Keep in mind that CS1 is now the last version that can be updated to CS4 now that Adobe has a 3 version update window. At the beginning of March Adobe will start tiered pricing and CS1 and CS2 will cost $200 more that you can upgrade to day. As soon as CS5 is released you will no longer be in the upgrade path and will need to pay full price for the CS5 creative suite.
If you want to continue to use Leopard then it would be best for you to upgrade to CS4. If you will never need to upgrade then it would be best to downgrade your system to Tiger by either restoring from a backup of Tiger you made before your system upgrade or wiping the drive and installing Tiger fresh. You can't Downgrade the Leopard with Tiger as you could with previous systems.