Here Comes Windows 11....

[Marcel Birgelen]

Devices such as an iPad or an Android phone are not a substitute for a full fledged desktop computer or notebook for use in graphics production. At best, devices like an iPad or smart phone augment the work one can do on a traditional computer.

Yet, there are platforms like iPad Pro that cost at least as much as a decent notebook and at least according to Apple, are targeted at professional usage. I'd say the iPad Pro would be a great platform for Adobe creative products to have a fully fledged client available on.

You keep characterizing Adobe as an outfit that has grown slow and weak. In terms of traditional graphics software (pixel-based image editing, vector graphics, page layout) I don't see any of Adobe's rivals doing any better on any platform. If we were talking about another market, such as video production, yeah Adobe has a much harder fight on its hands there with rivals like Avid and Blackmagic Design. Adobe doesn't have rivals that tough in the traditional graphics market.

Adobe is, in terms of software companies, an old company. I'm not saying they're weak, because right now they're probably bigger and stronger than ever. But they show many of the signs of a large, somewhat oversized company with many layers of red tape and bureaucracy. That's where they can be beat and I don't mind a bit of competition in this space either, but they're currently the 800 pound gorilla in the room.

The only thing that is going to hurt Adobe where they dominate is graphics applications coming along that truly out-class Illustrator, Photoshop or InDesign. The rival application has to be good enough to convince professional creative users to switch. In the 1990's Quark Xpress was the dominant page layout application for mass-produced print publications. InDesign came along and surpassed it. If one of Adobe's rivals is going to market a "Photoshop-killer" the application actually has to be better than Photoshop. The really difficult thing is the rival has to develop superior alternatives to Illustrator and InDesign at the same time. Integration across applications is a pretty big deal.

It wasn't even a paradigm shift that "killed" Quark. They became so complacent that Adobe eventually started to eat their lunch with a competing and far better integrated product (that ran native on MacOS X). People started to accept backward compatibility issues and moved forward and ditched QuarkXPress in the process. I don't see that happening any time soon with Adobe. While Adobe may be somewhat complacent in their "luxury position" at the top, they keep innovating and adding features to their products. But paradigm shifts are often hard to predict. The modern smart phone, for example, killed almost all other hand held entertainment products, nobody is buying iPods or mobile audio players of any kind anymore, it killed the HiFi stereo tower and a whole lot other stuff in the process. It's those kind of developments that could render something like Photoshop or Illustrator obsolete. I don't see that happening any time soon, but this whole space is fast moving, looking 10 or even 20 years ahead is pretty difficult.

Adobe took advantage of the situation when it happened. They even offered ways for Final Cut 7 users to import their projects into Premiere Pro when they couldn't do so in Final Cut X. Premiere Pro has had its own technical problems. To Adobe's credit, in recent years they've really opened up their beta and pre-release programs to more users and their development teams interact with users more frequently. Significant point-release updates happen more often and minor updates are pushed to users much more often than I see from Adobe's rivals.

DaVinci Resolve is still getting quite a few updates and for most video editing tasks it's really more than good enough. It's generally more stable than Premiere Pro and that's what matters a lot. While Premiere Pro stability has improved over the years, but the bitter taste of constant crashes still lingers with quite a few users. As for Avid MediaComposer, I think that Avid is a bit too complacent in their current position. Their product has a steep learning curve and caters to a specific niche they seemingly don't want to get out. We'll see how long they'll last...

I haven't used Gravit Designer, but I've tried other web-based attempts in creative software. CorelDRAW has a web-based app that is sort of passable for basic things. But it's not an acceptable substitute for the desktop application. I've seen message creation software for LED signs that was web-based. It mostly sucks. The applications that work best are those which install and run in the traditional sense.

If you're not locked into the Adobe ecosystem, this thing might actually work. It's a worthy vector editing program and it's remarkable because the desktop version and web version are essentially the same. Still, it will not beat Illustrator anytime soon. Their pricing is stupidly expensive compared to what Serif has to offer though and Serif has actually built some kind of mini-ecosystem around their products.

Serif has released a handful of minor updates to Affinity Designer over the past year. They've done more than Corel has with CorelDRAW. But they're not even close to matching the frequency of updates Adobe has given to Illustrator.

I guess they're focusing a lot of their efforts on a new set of applications. But the thing that they have going for them is that they've provided all those updates for free. I bought our original licenses back in 2017 or 2018 and I've never had to pay for any feature upgrade. I don't know if this will remain a sustainable model for the future though.

That's only an advantage for developers, not users. I do not expect graphics applications to move to an entirely web-based metaphor anytime soon, if ever.

It's also an advantage for the user, because I can't run Linux now on all my machines, because I need to run Windows only software. I could buy Macs, but even then I'll need to implement some emulation as I still need some software bound to Windows. For some software I could switch to native Mac software, but that would require me to buy new licenses, sometimes it would also require data conversions. Software that runs independent from host operating system therefore also gives the user more choice and the likes of Microsoft less power over my computer.

We'll see what happens, let's hope we and this forum are still around and somewhat kicking in 10 years or so and see whether we're running Photoshop from a browser or a stand-alone app. The Internet is an unpredictable thing. About 20 years back I expected wonderful things to happen around the Internet. I expected robots, actual self driving cars, the works... But what we got is a bunch of new megacorps setting people up against each other, while harvesting the last little detail of their personal life and selling it all of for cold hard cash. That's where all those billion dollars of venture capital money eventually went into...

[Marcel Birgelen]

Back on topic, Microsoft is slowly giving in and has apparently shared an "official method" of bypassing the TPM 2.0 check, by adding a registry key...

[Leo Enticknap]

Thanks Marcel. I had a feeling that they were going to relent on that. If they hadn't, there would have been so many non-upgradable PCs in the field that the takeup rate for W11 would have been largely restricted to new computer sales, themselves currently depressed because of the semiconductor shortage and inflation caused by covid-related economic policies. If that can had been kicked down the road until their announced end of support date for W10 (2025), the end result would have been a PR disaster.

Following an upgrade to the BIOS on one of my laptops (the 2019 work-issued one - from 1.2.6 to 1.6.0, so quite a big jump), an option called Platform Trust Technology (PTT) has appeared. Poking around online a bit, it looks like this could be a firmware TPM for Intel processors that W11 will accept.

The next time I have a work-at-home day, I'm going to buy a cheap M2 SSD (a 250GB one for $25 will be OK, as this laptop has an additional SATA drive for data), remove the one currently in the laptop, enable UEFI and PTT in the BIOS, and then attempt a from scratch W11 install. That way, if I get into any trouble, the project will be completely reversible, simply by undoing the BIOS changes and putting the original M2 drive back in again.

[Bobby Henderson]

Aside from the slick looking new UI shell, what are the big improvements in Windows 11? I'm not sure I even see the point of it. This advertised OS release feels a bit like a massive public beta in disguise.

IIRC, the XBox instant resume feature and the ability to run Android apps are both not ready yet. They're not in the version of Win11 going out to users now. Some of the changes to the Start menu, task bar and file manager seem like down-grades from Windows 10 functionality.

I would consider installing Win11 on my old notebook PC just to explore features in the Win11 interface. But that's not possible with such old hardware. I don't really feel like trying it out on my new notebook. I don't have a spare M.2 SSD laying around to install a Win11 image on it. I'm probably going to get a 2 terabyte M.2 Gen 4 drive pretty soon, but it will be for use in the second drive bay for internal storage.

Yet, there are platforms like iPad Pro that cost at least as much as a decent notebook and at least according to Apple, are targeted at professional usage. I'd say the iPad Pro would be a great platform for Adobe creative products to have a fully fledged client available on.

Despite what certain ads from Apple suggest an iPad is not a replacement for a full fledged desktop/notebook computer. I've made that judgment from using an iPad Pro to a limited extent in my work. While it is great for some tasks, such as hand drawing artwork directly on the screen, it has other limitations that can be maddening. Someone can spend over $2000 US on certain iPad configurations, which is more than a lot of mid-range computers. But the iPad still has some serious limitations.

Adobe is, in terms of software companies, an old company. I'm not saying they're weak, because right now they're probably bigger and stronger than ever. But they show many of the signs of a large, somewhat oversized company with many layers of red tape and bureaucracy.

Such as?

The chief criticisms with big lumbering corporations is they're slow to release new products, slow to fix issues with existing products and take their customers for granted. Adobe isn't really doing that to any large degree. For all the talk about how Adobe is vulnerable, no one is stepping up to best them -at least not in the mainstream graphics space, which makes up the bulk of their user base. Over the past decade Adobe's rivals have been tripping over their own feet even worse.

I guess they're focusing a lot of their efforts on a new set of applications. But the thing that they have going for them is that they've provided all those updates for free. I bought our original licenses back in 2017 or 2018 and I've never had to pay for any feature upgrade. I don't know if this will remain a sustainable model for the future though.

I'm wondering if the version numbers could be any clue. Affinity Designer is currently at 1.10.1. I think it was at version .08 when I first bought a copy. I suppose we'll see what happens whenever version 2.0 arrives. I might consider using the application more often if Serif would fix some of the limitations involving type.

[Frank Cox]

I would consider installing Win11 on my old notebook PC just to explore features in the Win11 interface.

Any reason not to install it in an Oracle Virtual Box and try it out that way?

I've become a big believer in VB for trying new stuff; I even keep sacrificial Linux images that I use to experiment with when I'm not sure what something will do. It's easy to take a snapshot and roll back to it if anything explodes.

[Van Dalton]

Back on topic, Microsoft is slowly giving in and has apparently shared an "official method" of bypassing the TPM 2.0 check, by adding a registry key...

Think I'll just park this here for safekeeping (since we all know what M$ are like, don't we?):

Ways to install Windows 11
Windows 11

This article describes ways to install Windows 11.

Note: To upgrade to Windows 11, devices should meet the Windows 11 minimum system requirements. Some Windows 10 features aren't available in Windows 11. System requirements to experience some Windows 11 features and apps will exceed the Windows 11 minimum system requirements. Find Windows 11 specs, features, and computer requirements

Before you begin

Make sure the device you want to install Windows 11 on meets the minimum system requirements. If your device is currently running Windows 10, we recommend you verify the minimum system requirements using the PC Health Check app. We do not recommend installing Windows 11 on a device that doesn't meet requirements. For more info, see Installing Windows 11 on devices that don't meet minimum system requirements.

Windows Update in Settings (recommended)

If you’re upgrading from Windows 10, we recommend you wait until you're notified through Windows Update that the upgrade is ready for your device. To check if Windows 11 is ready for your device, select Start > Settings > Update & Security > Windows Update > Check for updates.

For known issues that might affect your device, you can also check the Windows release health hub.

Other ways to install Windows 11 (not recommended unless instructed by support)

Use the Installation Assistant to upgrade

We recommend you wait until your device has been offered the upgrade to Windows 11 before you use the Installation Assistant. When you're ready, you can find it on the Windows 11 software download page.

Create Windows 11 installation media

On the Windows 11 software download page, select Create tool now and follow the instructions to install Windows 11.

Warning:

Microsoft recommends against installing Windows 11 on a device that does not meet the Windows 11 minimum system requirements. If you choose to install Windows 11 on a device that does not meet these requirements, and you acknowledge and understand the risks, you can create the following registry key values and bypass the check for TPM 2.0 (at least TPM 1.2 is required) and the CPU family and model.

Registry Key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\Setup\MoSetup

Name: AllowUpgradesWithUnsupportedTPMOrCPU

Type: REG_DWORD

Value: 1

Note: Serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly by using Registry Editor or by using another method. These problems might require that you reinstall the operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that these problems can be solved. Modify the registry at your own risk.

There are two installation paths available:

Upgrade by launching Setup on the media while running Windows 10. You will have the option to:

a. Perform a Full Upgrade, which keeps personal files (including drivers), apps, and Windows Settings. This is the default experience and is the one that Installation Assistant uses.

b. Keep Data Only will keep personal files (including drivers) only, not apps and not Windows Settings.

c. Clean Install will install Windows 11 and keep nothing from the Windows 10 installation. For more info, see Give your PC a Fresh Start.

Boot from media to launch Setup. This path is a clean install and will not retain previous files or settings. For more info, see Give your PC a Fresh Start.

Important: You should verify that your device meets minimum system requirements before you choose to boot from media, because it will allow you to install Windows 11 if you have at least TPM 1.2 (instead of the minimum system requirement of TPM 2.0), and it will not verify that your processor is on the approved CPU list based on family and model of processor.

Create an image install

Use DISM or 3rd party tools to directly apply an existing Windows 11 image to the disk.

Important: An image install of Windows 11 will not check for the following requirements: TPM 2.0 (at least TPM 1.2 is required) and CPU family and model.

Related articles

Installing Windows 11 on devices that don't meet minimum system requirements

================================================== ====================

Installing Windows 11 on devices that don't meet minimum system requirements
Windows 11

Note: For more info about the minimum system requirements for Windows 11, see Windows 11 specs, features, and computer requirements.

Installing Windows 11 on a device that does not meet Windows 11 minimum system requirements is not recommended. If you choose to install Windows 11 on ineligible hardware, you should be comfortable assuming the risk of running into compatibility issues.

Your device might malfunction due to these compatibility or other issues. Devices that do not meet these system requirements will no longer be guaranteed to receive updates, including but not limited to security updates.

The following disclaimer applies if you install Windows 11 on a device that doesn't meet the minimum system requirements:

A message in Windows 10 explaining that a PC doesn't meet the requirements to upgrade to Windows 11. The message includes a warning not to upgrade because the PC will become unsupported.

Before you install Windows 11

If you are unsure if your device meets the Windows 11 minimum system requirements and have Windows 10 already installed, you can download the PC Health Check app, which will assess eligibility and identify components of your device that don't meet the minimum requirements. The app will also link to info that details steps you can take to make your device meet the minimum system requirements. To learn more, download and install PC Health Check app.

After you install Windows 11

If you're experiencing issues after upgrading to Windows 11 and your device does not meet the minimum system requirements, we recommend you go back to Windows 10. Select Start > Settings > System > Recovery > Go back.

This option is only available for 10 days following your upgrade, after which time the files needed to perform this function will be removed to free up disk space on your device.
Related articles

What you do with this information of course is your business. Personally I wouldn't touch Windows these days with a 50-foot pole attached to my buddy's computer but I'm sure somebody will find it useful.

[Bobby Henderson]

Any reason not to install it in an Oracle Virtual Box and try it out that way?

I think my old and semi-retired notebook would not be strong enough to run Win11 in that manner. I don't have any desire to load Win11 on my new Alienware X17 until that version of the OS is functionally complete and stable. Also I'm not looking to leap until I know the applications I rely on in my work are proven to run on it without any serious issues.

I've never tried using Virtual Box before. It might be interesting to try with loading an old version of Windows on my old notebook in order to run ancient versions of Macromedia Freehand, Adobe Illustrator and CorelDRAW. I still have some old CD-ROMs of those applications.

My biggest near-term concerns with computer software have more to do with Adobe's upcoming 2022 slate of Creative Cloud applications as well as third party vendors releasing updates to their Adobe plug-ins. Those updates usually lag at least a week or so behind the release of Adobe's application updates. I would be surprised if any of that stuff has been optimized for Windows 11. It may be well into Winter or even Spring 2022 before that happens.

[Frank Cox]

I don't have any desire to load Win11 on my new Alienware X17 until that version of the OS is functionally complete and stable.

That would be why you use VB. You can install whatever OS you like as a virtual image on your shiny new doodad and if you decide that don't like it you can take it out and shoot it and it's just like it was never there. Deleting an image you no longer want is an option on the main VB menu.

VB images can't touch the underlying operating system without special permissions. Even copying a file from your native hd to the image requires you to allow read-only or read-write permission unless you do it through something like sftp.

[Leo Enticknap]

My desire to get my hands on W11 and come up to speed on it is not motivated by any fanboy geekery. It's released now, and so it'll only be a matter of time before I'm asked for help by an end user as to why the Barco or NEC app won't work on it, projector and server web UIs are quirky, etc. etc.; or simply that they've replaced an old booth PC with one that came with a W11 image preinstalled, and need assistance getting it working. So I want to get to know my way around it before that happens. The end user changes from W7 to W10 were subtle but significant in many ways, and so I want to stay ahead of that curve.

[Bobby Henderson]

That would be why you use VB. You can install whatever OS you like as a virtual image on your shiny new doodad and if you decide that don't like it you can take it out and shoot it and it's just like it was never there. Deleting an image you no longer want is an option on the main VB menu.

That's fine and all. But even on a M.2 NVMe SSD it's still going to take a good amount of time to install VB, the OS and the applications intended to run under it as well as consume a decent amount of hard drive space. Ultimately I'm struggling to see what I would actually gain by running Windows 11 in its current form. There has to be some benefit. I just don't see any for now. I'm sure I'll be running Win11 eventually. I'll migrate over to it when I feel the time is right to do so.

As long as it appears it is going to take for Dell to deliver the XPS Special Edition desktop PC I ordered 3 weeks ago I'm praying they don't go sticking Windows 11 on it. I ordered it with Win 10 Pro. We have at least a dozen computers on our office network, nearly all of which are running Win10. Inserting a Win11 machine into the mix might open a can of worms.

[Marcel Birgelen]

Aside from the slick looking new UI shell, what are the big improvements in Windows 11? I'm not sure I even see the point of it. This advertised OS release feels a bit like a massive public beta in disguise.

I will not be upgrading our workstations and notebooks just yet. I also see little value in what has been presented. I also didn't really have a functional need to upgrade from Windows 7 either, yet eventually, you're forced to do so. Also, if you buy a new PC, it will come with Windows 11 by default, at least in the near future. Maybe you can still downgrade, but eventually there will be systems locked into Windows 11.
Just like Leo, the only reason to get some acquaintance with W11 is to get a general feeling for it, so I can help people that end up being stuck with it and do encounter issues with it.

Despite what certain ads from Apple suggest an iPad is not a replacement for a full fledged desktop/notebook computer. I've made that judgment from using an iPad Pro to a limited extent in my work. While it is great for some tasks, such as hand drawing artwork directly on the screen, it has other limitations that can be maddening. Someone can spend over $2000 US on certain iPad configurations, which is more than a lot of mid-range computers. But the iPad still has some serious limitations.

There is a bit of irony here, Windows 10 actually works pretty well in tablet mode. My Lenovo Yoga X1 can flip the keyboard behind the screen and comes with a (Wacom) stylus. The hardware inside a fully featured iPad Pro should be able to run fully featured versions of those apps, it's just the operating system that's the limiting factor...

Such as?

The chief criticisms with big lumbering corporations is they're slow to release new products, slow to fix issues with existing products and take their customers for granted. Adobe isn't really doing that to any large degree. For all the talk about how Adobe is vulnerable, no one is stepping up to best them -at least not in the mainstream graphics space, which makes up the bulk of their user base. Over the past decade Adobe's rivals have been tripping over their own feet even worse.

The biggest one played out over the last decade and a half and that's the way they handled Flash. Flash was one of the primary reasons for Adobe to buy Macromedia. Flash once was installed on almost every single PC out there. Flash has, for a long time, been the multimedia engine of the web. Websites like YouTube wouldn't even have been possible without Flash. But it had even more potential: It could've become the default runtime environment for web-based applications long before HTML 5 and JavaScript 2.0 did something that comes close. Instead, Adobe was slow to update their client, slow to release it onto platforms like Linux. They got themselves into a fight with Apple, because Flash at the time was one big buggy resource hog. Instead of fixing it, they decided to let it die...

Another thing is the stability of their Premiere and AfterFX products, which really have been a letdown for many people over the years. While the situation has improved, it has driven quite a few users to other products.

There are other things, like their half-baked attempt at entering the 3D space. It will probably take years for them to bring native Apple Silicon support for the applications where it matters most, like Premiere Pro and AfterFX. Their Acrobat Reader has often been a hit and miss, especially if you're deploying it centrally. It has the tendency to blow itself up after every few weeks via automatic updates. Also, some competing PDF products are better at manipulating PDF files than their own bloated Adobe Acrobat product.

Yeah, I could go on for a while. Like many companies, Adobe has seen its ups and downs over the years. They're the biggest player right now, so they obviously catch a lot of wind. But it's clear to me it isn't the company it was 20~25 years ago, where you could mail support with a bug and would get a new executable back from a developer for you to try...

I'm wondering if the version numbers could be any clue. Affinity Designer is currently at 1.10.1. I think it was at version .08 when I first bought a copy. I suppose we'll see what happens whenever version 2.0 arrives. I might consider using the application more often if Serif would fix some of the limitations involving type.

There hasn't been any official announcement for version 2.0 yet AFAIK. I guess that once they bump their version to 2.0, they'll start asking upgrade fees for existing licenses.

[Bobby Henderson]

The biggest one played out over the last decade and a half and that's the way they handled Flash. Flash was one of the primary reasons for Adobe to buy Macromedia. Flash once was installed on almost every single PC out there. Flash has, for a long time, been the multimedia engine of the web. Websites like YouTube wouldn't even have been possible without Flash. But it had even more potential: It could've become the default runtime environment for web-based applications long before HTML 5 and JavaScript 2.0 did something that comes close. Instead, Adobe was slow to update their client, slow to release it onto platforms like Linux. They got themselves into a fight with Apple, because Flash at the time was one big buggy resource hog. Instead of fixing it, they decided to let it die...

Flash had its technical problems, but the real reason Apple hated Flash was they weren't the ones making money off of it. Apple and Adobe have been at odds with each other, marketing competing technologies going back to the 1980's. It wasn't long after Adobe acquired Macromedia's properties that they saw where the web was heading with HTML5. Hence the lack of resources being devoted to further development of Flash.

For all the complaints about Flash, particularly with security, the situation with web development is even worse now. The web has more security issues now than ever before, even without Flash being around as a scapegoat. The deployment of "HTML5" was a disorganized mess. It took several years for leading web browsers to build in the support for key features, such as the SVG vector graphics format. Microsoft took forever to rid Internet Explorer from Windows (or at least hide it). Most web sites now are built on canned clip-art templates of some sort using things like Word Press, with the bigger sites using databases to auto-generate things. No one has the time to hand-code individual page so they look properly composed on all the various sizes and shapes of displays being used to load web pages now.

The loss of Flash did very little to hurt Adobe. They have other technologies that are earning them money. Flash was on its death bed when Creative Cloud first launched several years ago.

Another thing is the stability of their Premiere and AfterFX products, which really have been a letdown for many people over the years. While the situation has improved, it has driven quite a few users to other products.

Some of the technical issues with Premiere have been Adobe's fault. However, some users have been their own worst enemy too. It takes decent hardware to run Premiere Pro and After Effects in an effective and stable manner. It can't just be loaded on a $1000 ultra portable laptop. And the apps aren't going to run well on ancient hardware either. In the past I've joked there was no such thing as having too much RAM for Photoshop. That is especially the case for After Effects.

There are other things, like their half-baked attempt at entering the 3D space. It will probably take years for them to bring native Apple Silicon support for the applications where it matters most, like Premiere Pro and AfterFX. Their Acrobat Reader has often been a hit and miss, especially if you're deploying it centrally. It has the tendency to blow itself up after every few weeks via automatic updates. Also, some competing PDF products are better at manipulating PDF files than their own bloated Adobe Acrobat product.

Adobe Audition, Character Animator, Dreamweaver, Illustrator, InDesign, Lightroom, Lightroom Classic, Photoshop, Premiere Pro, and Adobe XD run native on Apple M1 CPUs. They're working on native M1 support for other applications, such as After Effects. I doubt it will be very long before the Substance suite of applications is ported to M1.

I'm not sure where they're going with the 3D thing. It looks like baby steps for now. Some basic features are being worked into Illustrator and Photoshop. And that's probably enough, because neither needs to have a full-blown 3D modeling/animation environment built-in. The Cinema4D Cineware plug-in can be used for basic work in apps like After Effects and Illustrator. Ultimately it would be great if they had a fully fleshed out stand-alone 3D modeling & animation application. Based on what I'm already seeing with the Substance suite of applications, if Adobe ever does launch a dedicated 3D modeling and animation application (or suite of applications) it's probably going to involve a separate subscription apart from the existing suite of CC applications. The full suite of Substance apps involves a separate subscription.

As for PDF, Adobe invented it. As for 3rd party applications that manipulate PDF files those applications can do only so much. Adobe made a lot of the fundamentals in PDF an open source thing. That's a big reason why those third party applications can even exist. Adobe has its own "secret sauce" of features that get baked into PDF files generated by Illustrator and InDesign. Those files will fall apart if opened for editing in one of those non-Adobe PDF applications.

Yeah, I could go on for a while. Like many companies, Adobe has seen its ups and downs over the years. They're the biggest player right now, so they obviously catch a lot of wind. But it's clear to me it isn't the company it was 20~25 years ago, where you could mail support with a bug and would get a new executable back from a developer for you to try...

Are you a current Creative Cloud subscriber? It doesn't sound like it. From my own real world experience using the product I've seen much more lately in the way of updates to both fix bugs and introduce new features than I ever saw during the Creative Suite era or the era the preceded it in the 1990's.

[Marcel Birgelen]

Flash had its technical problems, but the real reason Apple hated Flash was they weren't the ones making money off of it. Apple and Adobe have been at odds with each other, marketing competing technologies going back to the 1980's. It wasn't long after Adobe acquired Macromedia's properties that they saw where the web was heading with HTML5. Hence the lack of resources being devoted to further development of Flash.

For all the complaints about Flash, particularly with security, the situation with web development is even worse now. The web has more security issues now than ever before, even without Flash being around as a scapegoat. The deployment of "HTML5" was a disorganized mess. It took several years for leading web browsers to build in the support for key features, such as the SVG vector graphics format. Microsoft took forever to rid Internet Explorer from Windows (or at least hide it). Most web sites now are built on canned clip-art templates of some sort using things like Word Press, with the bigger sites using databases to auto-generate things. No one has the time to hand-code individual page so they look properly composed on all the various sizes and shapes of displays being used to load web pages now.

The loss of Flash did very little to hurt Adobe. They have other technologies that are earning them money. Flash was on its death bed when Creative Cloud first launched several years ago.

Adobe was on track to cater to actual developers, with their commitment to stuff like Flex back then. Especially in the period where HTML5 wasn't really a thing yet, a lot of people committed themselves towards Flash and Flex as a general runtime library on-top of Flash. Even we used Flex for some stuff we simply couldn't do with ordinary HTML at the time. If you wanted to do ANYTHING with video, then Flash really was your only reliable option. I've seen some pretty impressive applications built with Flash and Flex over the years and we helped to bring some of them to live, but all but one of them are dead in the water right now.

IMHO, Adobe should've committed more resources to Flash itself, in cleaning up the runtime, then open source the specs themselves, much like they did with PDF. They could've let the "client side" of things to the browser community, but they would've had an enormous head-start when it comes to the creation side of things.

Apparently, Adobe lost a lot of the initial Flash developers shortly after the acquisition and it took them too many efforts to get Flash back on track. Also, not being a company used to cater towards software developers, they essentially neglected that side of Flash for years, only in 2010, when someone must have realized the potential they had, they started to put some efforts into Flex again, but by then it was mostly too late. Abysmal mobile support, only marginal Linux support and the absence of any good 64-bit release of Flash killed many of those ambitions.

It's hard to quantify what Adobe lost on Flash. In the end, there wasn't much left, but when you look at what Flash could've been, then I guess they lost a lot of potential here.

Some of the technical issues with Premiere have been Adobe's fault. However, some users have been their own worst enemy too. It takes decent hardware to run Premiere Pro and After Effects in an effective and stable manner. It can't just be loaded on a $1000 ultra portable laptop. And the apps aren't going to run well on ancient hardware either. In the past I've joked there was no such thing as having too much RAM for Photoshop. That is especially the case for After Effects.

Our workstations have 256 GBytes of RAM, quad Xeon CPUs, SSD RAID as primary storage and dedicated NVidia GPUs and they've had that for the past years. Resources aren't really the issue. Yet Premiere and AfterFX remain among the most buggy applications we use on a regular basis. Adobe Premiere crashes have become a meme of its own...

As for PDF, Adobe invented it. As for 3rd party applications that manipulate PDF files those applications can do only so much. Adobe made a lot of the fundamentals in PDF an open source thing. That's a big reason why those third party applications can even exist. Adobe has its own "secret sauce" of features that get baked into PDF files generated by Illustrator and InDesign. Those files will fall apart if opened for editing in one of those non-Adobe PDF applications.

Well, the thing is, their Acrobat application is a pretty bloated app for what most people want to do with PDF. I've had more consistent experiences with Nitro PDF than with Acrobat, even though we're already paying for Acrobat.

Are you a current Creative Cloud subscriber? It doesn't sound like it. From my own real world experience using the product I've seen much more lately in the way of updates to both fix bugs and introduce new features than I ever saw during the Creative Suite era or the era the preceded it in the 1990's.

I'm paying for a whole bunch of "All Apps" subscriptions (I remember them being billed as "Master Collection Subscription" and the price has bumped by about EUR 10 since we started some years ago). Yeah, there is a constant cycle of updates, but that wasn't the point I tried to make. The point was that when you file a bug report now, you could as well just mail it to your grandma, maybe it will get archived somewhere and used in some statistics, but you sure can't expect anybody to jump on your problem right away. In the long-gone past, when we filed a bug report to Adobe, chances were you got an e-mail from an actual developer in a few days with a fix for it. This kind of access, while not entirely unheard of in those days, is long gone now, you're now just one of many million customers.

[Bobby Henderson]

IMHO, Adobe should've committed more resources to Flash itself, in cleaning up the runtime, then open source the specs themselves, much like they did with PDF. They could've let the "client side" of things to the browser community, but they would've had an enormous head-start when it comes to the creation side of things.

Like I said earlier, the writing was on the wall with Flash. Apple, Google and others decided web browsers were going to go the "HTML5" route, with all the pertinent features being built into the browsers rather than users having to install plug-ins. It took what seemed like forever for various browsers to build in functional compliance with HTML5 standards. Modern browsers today are bulky things that are often resource hogs, particularly Google Chrome. Adobe would have been wasting its time trying to continue developing Flash when companies like Google, Mozilla and Apple weren't going to allow it to run in their browsers.

There are things I miss about Flash. It wasn't difficult creating Flash-based elements to incorporate into a web page design; it took a long time for SVG to be able to do the same thing just for basic graphics purposes. Flash-based YouTube videos were one thing, but I miss the more interactive videos and games. There were all these silly Joe Cartoon videos. In the late 1990's the Bally-Midway web site had a "Shockwave Arcade" featuring authentic yet Flash-based versions of games like Joust and Robotron: 2084. I still have a bunch of game sounds from those old Williams Electronics games that I grabbed out of the "temporary Internet files folder" from playing those Flash-based games.

Adobe had other things they let go out to pasture. They've tried to develop WYSIWYG web page editing applications twice, first with Go Live in the 1990's (and the Flash-like LiveMotion app) and then later with the Adobe Muse application. Dreamweaver is the only alternative under the Adobe umbrella now. It may only be a matter of time before they ditch that with "web development" being so heavy in WordPress and other template types of things.

Apparently, Adobe lost a lot of the initial Flash developers shortly after the acquisition and it took them too many efforts to get Flash back on track. Also, not being a company used to cater towards software developers, they essentially neglected that side of Flash for years

I can say the same thing about Macromedia and how it treated various applications it had. They did absolutely nothing with Fontographer other than change the branding after they acquired it and other applications like Freehand from Aldus. Fontographer didn't get another update until after Adobe swallowed Macromedia and spit some of its bones in the direction of Font Lab Ltd. Freehand was a legit equal to Adobe Illustrator. In a rush to make Freehand 10 the first Mac OSX native graphics app, Macromedia botched its release. Even the Windows version had a slew of bugs, some of which didn't get fixed until the next "Freehand MX" release, which turned out to be its last. Adobe killed Freehand soon after acquiring it. They even removed .FH file open/import support from Illustrator.

Right now Corel appears to be making some of the same kinds of mistakes with CorelDRAW that Macromedia did with Freehand.

Well, the thing is, their Acrobat application is a pretty bloated app for what most people want to do with PDF. I've had more consistent experiences with Nitro PDF than with Acrobat, even though we're already paying for Acrobat.

You're assuming a lot by stating "what most people want to do with PDF". Adobe's version of Acrobat is "bloated" because it has had to do more than a cheap or free PDF app.

I'm paying for a whole bunch of "All Apps" subscriptions (I remember them being billed as "Master Collection Subscription" and the price has bumped by about EUR 10 since we started some years ago).

The Master Collection was never a subscription product. That was the top-tier product in the Creative Suite range of software packages. Previously there were separate software suites geared for print, web and video. The Master Collection package encompassed them all, but it cost quite a bit more. I have a personal copy of Master Collection CS 5.5.

A Creative Cloud subscription is equivalent to having a Master Collection license and paying to upgrade it each year. But the retail Master Collection suite didn't have other CC bonuses, such as the Adobe Fonts service (which is worth a fortune).

Yeah, there is a constant cycle of updates, but that wasn't the point I tried to make. The point was that when you file a bug report now, you could as well just mail it to your grandma, maybe it will get archived somewhere and used in some statistics, but you sure can't expect anybody to jump on your problem right away.

Again, are you a current Creative Cloud subscriber? It doesn't sound like it to me. This mailing a bug report to grandma stuff is exaggerated nonsense.

Adobe wasn't fixing bugs any faster in the 1990's than they are fixing them now. Hell, back in the early to mid 1990's they weren't covering both Mac and Windows platforms evenly with product releases. For example, Illustrator 4 was a Windows exclusive then versions 5, 5.5 and 6 were exclusive to MacOS. Back then all the software was sold on discs in a retail box, and it stayed that way through the Creative Suite era. In the CS era it was possible to download updates for various applications, but the user typically had to remember to look for those updates at Adobe's web site. Now the user has the choice of getting the updates automatically pushed or at least alerted when they're available.

It is not difficult at all to report a bug to an Adobe product development team. Trying to do it by email is pretty silly though. It's more effective to go into Adobe's Support Community forums and post comments there. If it's an actual bug chances are other people will be discussing it there. Another perhaps more effective method is participating in an application's Beta program -which is now far easier to do than in the past. There is a different beta forum, where bugs in an application's public release version, its pre-release version or a beta build can be reported. The development teams also have video chat sessions periodically for Q&A with beta users. For me, the better reason to be involved in an application's beta program is feature requests will get more attention and actual discussion.

[Marcel Birgelen]

Like I said earlier, the writing was on the wall with Flash. Apple, Google and others decided web browsers were going to go the "HTML5" route, with all the pertinent features being built into the browsers rather than users having to install plug-ins. It took what seemed like forever for various browsers to build in functional compliance with HTML5 standards. Modern browsers today are bulky things that are often resource hogs, particularly Google Chrome. Adobe would have been wasting its time trying to continue developing Flash when companies like Google, Mozilla and Apple weren't going to allow it to run in their browsers.

The Flash runtime or any compatible implementation could've been a part of any standard browser distribution, much like JavaScript is also a standard part of any browser nowadays, if they'd open-sourced the thing. It could've become a standard like HTML5, SVG and JavaScript.

I can say the same thing about Macromedia and how it treated various applications it had. They did absolutely nothing with Fontographer other than change the branding after they acquired it and other applications like Freehand from Aldus. Fontographer didn't get another update until after Adobe swallowed Macromedia and spit some of its bones in the direction of Font Lab Ltd. Freehand was a legit equal to Adobe Illustrator. In a rush to make Freehand 10 the first Mac OSX native graphics app, Macromedia botched its release. Even the Windows version had a slew of bugs, some of which didn't get fixed until the next "Freehand MX" release, which turned out to be its last. Adobe killed Freehand soon after acquiring it. They even removed .FH file open/import support from Illustrator.

I've never been a Freehand user, so I can't really comment on that, other than that I've heard a lot of complaints back in the day. I guess it was clear from the beginning that Adobe simply wanted to get rid of any competition and didn't want to maintain two code bases for essentially the same product.

It's interesting that you mentioned the short-lived Adobe LiveMotion, as it has the possibility to export to Flash and that's exactly what I've used it for in the past. I found most Adobe UXes to be more intuitive as those offered by Macromedia and it took quite a few years to somewhat homogenize them, one of them was Dreamweaver, among Flash probably the only Macromedia product I regularily used.

You're assuming a lot by stating "what most people want to do with PDF". Adobe's version of Acrobat is "bloated" because it has had to do more than a cheap or free PDF app.

Well, Nitro PDF goes for about EUR 220 without update license... Maybe you consider that a cheap app, but at least it isn't free...

Nitro PDF works far better for most of our daily PDF needs than Acrobat, even though we already pay for a bunch of full Acrobat licenses as part of Creative Cloud.

Again, are you a current Creative Cloud subscriber? It doesn't sound like it to me. This mailing a bug report to grandma stuff is exaggerated nonsense.

I would've loved for Adobe to give me the answer... but look at this...

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But Bobby... I know what we're paying for and it's 6 x "All Apps" Creative Cloud subscription + 1 x Adobe Stock. Those subscriptions used to be billed as something like "Creative Cloud <insert some stuff here> Master Collection" subscriptions, probably because we used to have a bunch of "Master Collection" licenses we redeemed for some heavy discount when we moved towards Creative Cloud for the first two years as long as we gave up our CS6 licenses. This was back in 2014 or so. Somewhere last year, they changed the name of the subscription to simply "All Apps" and bumped the price with about EUR 10/sub/month. Technically, there was no difference between both licenses/subscriptions, other than that our old subscription was cheaper.

Adobe wasn't fixing bugs any faster in the 1990's than they are fixing them now. Hell, back in the early to mid 1990's they weren't covering both Mac and Windows platforms evenly with product releases. For example, Illustrator 4 was a Windows exclusive then versions 5, 5.5 and 6 were exclusive to MacOS. Back then all the software was sold on discs in a retail box, and it stayed that way through the Creative Suite era. In the CS era it was possible to download updates for various applications, but the user typically had to remember to look for those updates at Adobe's web site. Now the user has the choice of getting the updates automatically pushed or at least alerted when they're available.

There was no such thing as automatic updates back then, but the shop I worked for was a licensed Adobe distributor, we had quite a bunch of rather high-profile customers, including most local newspapers that mattered back then. We had pretty much direct access to the higher tier support at Adobe, which often ended up with the actual developers, those in the credits, being involved.