How to install Adobe CS2 free suite of products

Recently I stumbled upon Adobe's free download of CS2 suite of products and shared on social media. That suite includes:

• Photoshop
• Acrobat
• InDesign
• InCopy
• Premiere Pro
• Illustrator
• GoLive
• Audition
• After Effects

Friends on Facebook, followers on Twitter, Tumblr, Wordpress, people in my circles on Google+... all contributed their feedback. Nobody flat out hated my update. However, while most liked, favorited, rebloged, retweeted and reshared on their most valued social media channels, some people remained sceptical about the freebie. I'm not sure why. Was it a "too good to be true" syndrome, fear of the unknown, solid attempt to find and focus on that one Nnnnnegative aspect of the whole thing? I'm not too sure. 

The most common feedback revolved around alleged fine print somewhere online that claimed necessity of purchasing a license for that free download from Adobe. I saw blog posts about that in upper 1000's of words where authors copied & pasted (allegedly) Adobe's short announcement. Authors would continue rambling about all possible legal ends of things, and after several lengthy paragraphs without definite conclusions, they would end their spiel stating that an install of the software wasn't even attempted.

I, on the other hand, attempted to install free Adobe CS2 software - not on one, not on 2 but on 4 unique operating systems: Windows XP, Windows 7, Windows 8 and Mac OS X Mavericks. 

No purchase was necessary as promised by Adobe, and as expected. 

3 success stories. 4th installation ended with a prompt about lack of support for PowerPC applications on my latest version of Mac OS X (I believe you'd need a version prior to 10.7 for this free Adobe CS2 installation to work).

I'm using Adobe Creative Suite CS2 as my guinea pig. If you wanted to start enjoying Adobe CS2 package on your machine (or you wanted to verify my installation routine), follow there steps:

1. Prepare installation files
1. Download from https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/entitlement/index.cfm?e=cs2_downloads
2. On Windows, extract CreativeSuiteCS2Disc1.exe,
   CreativeSuiteCS2Disc2.exe and CreativeSuiteCS2Disc3.exe
   into the same destination directory by double-clicking each of them and following prompts
1. For Windows XP and Windows 7. used C:\CS2\Creative Suite CS2\, but you can extract that stuff anywhere
2. On my Windows 8 machine I actually installed that software straight from a shared location on my home network
3. The extraction process should create a folder named "Adobe Creative Suite 2.0"
3. On Mac, open CS_20_IE_NonRet_D1.dmg.bin, CS_20_IE_NonRet_D2.dmg.bin
    and CS_20_IE_NonRet_D3.dmg.bin to expand them 

   

   Mac OS X Mavericks. Adobe CS2 installation
   Expand .bin files

4. Start the installation process:
1. On Windows, double-click setup.exe from "Adobe Creative Suite 2.0" directory
2. On Mac open CS_20_IE_NonRet_D1.dmg, CS_20_IE_NonRet_D2.dmg and CS_20_IE_NonRet_D3.dmg. Then, double-click Adobe Installer icon in Adobe Creative Suite Disk 1. That's as far as you'll go if you're Mac is up-to-date. Adobe CS2 is a PowerPC software package no longer supported by Mac after version 10.7 (released to public on July 20th, 2011).

   

   Mac OS X Mavericks. Adobe CS2 installation
   Open .dmg files
   
   

    

   

   Mac OS X Mavericks. Adobe CS2 installation
   Double-click Adobe Installer

    

   

   Mac OS X Mavericks. Adobe CS2 installation
   Not supported by 10.7 and later versions
    due to lack of support for PowerPC

   
   
2. Continue if you're on Windows or Mac OS 10.6.9 or earlier by providing name and a serial number  

   

   Windows 8. Adobe CS2 installation - Personalization

3. Set the installation path and hit Next 

   

   Windows 8. Adobe CS2 installation - Location
4. Pick what to install and hit Next 

   

   Windows 7. Free Adobe CS2 installation
   Pick what to install and hit Next

   
   

   

   Windows 8. Free Adobe CS2 installation
   Pick what to install and hit Next

5. Review installation summary and click Install  

   

   Windows 8. Free Adobe CS2 installation
   Review summary and click Install. Go Back if necessary.

6. Register the product 

   

   Windows 7. Free Adobe CS2 installation - Register the product

   
   

   

   Windows 8. Free Adobe CS2 installation - Register the product

7. Check for updates 

   

   Windows 7. Free Adobe CS2 installation - Optional. Check for updates

   
   
   
   
   
   

   

   Windows 8. Free Adobe CS2 installation - Optional. Check for updates

   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
8. Set preferences of Adobe Updater on Windows 7

   

   Windows 7. Free Adobe CS2 installation
   Optional. Set updater preferences

   

   Windows 7. Free Adobe CS2 installation
   Most likely you will see the same prompt.
   No Updates Available
   
   
   Windows 8. Free Adobe CS2 installation
   
   Optional. Set updater preferences
   

   
   

   
   

   

   Windows 8. Free Adobe CS2 installation
   Adobe Updater

9. Check out what's been added to your tiles or start menu 

   

   Windows 7. Free Adobe CS2 installation
   ExtendScript Tool added to the main Start Menu

   
   

   

   Windows 7. Free Adobe CS2 installation
   Adobe folders and shortcuts added 
   to All Programs section of Start Menu

   
   

   

   Windows 8. Free Adobe CS2 installation
   Adobe tiles added to home screen

   
   
   
   
   
   
10. Reorganize things shortcuts, buttons and tile groups if necessary 

    

    Windows 7. Free Adobe CS2 installation

    Free free to reorganize Adobe shortcuts in the Start Menu
    

    
    

    
    

    

    Windows 8. Free Adobe CS2 installation
    Free free to reorganize Adobe tiles one home screen

    
    

    

    Windows 8. Free Adobe CS2 installation
    I strongly suggest creating and labeling a group of tiles 
    just added to your home screen as Adobe CS2

11. Run one of the applications installed
12. Enjoy the freebie

As you can see from successful operations above, free Adobe CS2 software is in fact free and it will serve you well on Windows and on a Mac OS X (if you're on a version earlier than 10.7). CS2 may be several years old, but that software still allows for faster, easier and more productive use of your time while working on documents, images, web content or audio. I'm not implying that you must install it on your machine; all I'm saying is that if you need basic features of Adobe CS software, and you're ok with an older (but still useful) piece of software, free Adobe CS2 is a legitimate, valid and good alternative.