topic Re: I need advice about my IMac in Electronics

I need advice about my IMac

Mom2Dogs — Tue, 04 Nov 2014 02:53:12 GMT

I will try to make this as clear and short as possible...

I have an IMac at work (self employed) it is old (but runs just fine) the operating system is 10.5.8...yes, I know it's OLD....I want to purchase another IMac and I found one on Ebay at a good price. The ebay item has the same operating system as my current computer.

Does anyone know if I can install my Adobe Creative Suite software onto the back up IMac? I have the CD's so access to the software is not the problem, making sure they will load is my question, the IMac is not returnable. Or I also thought possibly I could burn cd's of the software off my current IMac and load the cd information on the back up IMac.

I want an Imac for the house so that I can work at home or if something would happen to the IMac at work I would have a back up.

We are not sure how much longer we will be in business and cannot afford a new computer along with the expense of the new Adobe Creative suite (adobe now rents the software, you cannot purchase any longer, at least that is what I have been told)

Thanks for any input.

Re: I need advice about my IMac

jaxs mom — Tue, 04 Nov 2014 05:23:24 GMT

Since both imacs are currently using Leopard the OS isn't an issue. Are you worried about activation keys for Adobe? You could contact Adobe, or look on their website. The easiest way to set up your new imac would be from a time machine backup of your current machine. That's what I've done when I bought a new system. I just make sure I have a recent Time Machine backup on my external drive and then I plug it into my new machine and tell it to restore from backup. I've never had issues with programs that require activation codes, but I don't run Adobe Creative Suite.

Re: I need advice about my IMac

Lynnj — Tue, 04 Nov 2014 05:30:14 GMT

Do you have all the specs from this eBay iMac? I think it would come down to the specs matching the specs needed for the current version software. The only other thing that I can think of is the license for Adobe Creative suite. Can you have that loaded on more than 1 computer? If not, it wouldn't matter if you had the CD, it won't let you download.

Re: I need advice about my IMac

Lynnj — Tue, 04 Nov 2014 05:34:26 GMT

On 11/3/2014 jaxs mom said:
Since both imacs are currently using Leopard the OS isn't an issue. Are you worried about activation keys for Adobe? You could contact Adobe, or look on their website. The easiest way to set up your new imac would be from a time machine backup of your current machine. That's what I've done when I bought a new system. I just make sure I have a recent Time Machine backup on my external drive and then I plug it into my new machine and tell it to restore from backup. I've never had issues with programs that require activation codes, but I don't run Adobe Creative Suite.

Does time machine also upload 3rd party software? I thought it just did data, documents, and settings. Of course if you are using apps downloaded from the App Store, I think it brings those over along with everything saved in the apps. It would make sense for time machine to bring over any documents or data from 3rd party software, but not reinstall the actual program on a new computer. But I could be wrong. I've not had to go through that yet.

Re: I need advice about my IMac

Lynnj — Tue, 04 Nov 2014 06:08:16 GMT

Just did a quick search online, everything that I read says you'll need to uninstall/deactivate on old computer,then install on new computer. Understand that your situation is adding a 2nd computer, what I've seen leads me to believe that you need 2 licenses to run on both. Can you look at the CD and tell how many licenses you have ? Maybe the version you bought came with more than one, then it would be a non issue to have this loaded on both computers.

Re: I need advice about my IMac

jaxs mom — Tue, 04 Nov 2014 06:38:46 GMT

On 11/3/2014 Lynnj said:
On 11/3/2014 jaxs mom said:
Since both imacs are currently using Leopard the OS isn't an issue. Are you worried about activation keys for Adobe? You could contact Adobe, or look on their website. The easiest way to set up your new imac would be from a time machine backup of your current machine. That's what I've done when I bought a new system. I just make sure I have a recent Time Machine backup on my external drive and then I plug it into my new machine and tell it to restore from backup. I've never had issues with programs that require activation codes, but I don't run Adobe Creative Suite.

Does time machine also upload 3rd party software? I thought it just did data, documents, and settings. Of course if you are using apps downloaded from the App Store, I think it brings those over along with everything saved in the apps. It would make sense for time machine to bring over any documents or data from 3rd party software, but not reinstall the actual program on a new computer. But I could be wrong. I've not had to go through that yet.

All I know is that in 2010 when I bought my current imac that's exactly how I migrated over to my new machine. But I haven't run Leopard in five years because I always upgrade when the new updates come out. So I can't remember the limits of Leopard at this point. If it was me, I'd go over to support.apple.com and read up on migration and time machine backups.

Re: I need advice about my IMac

Mom2Dogs — Wed, 05 Nov 2014 00:57:08 GMT

Thank you everyone for your advice. I do have the original serial numbers so if prompted for the numbers I will have them, if I choose to buy the back up computer.

I wish that I could afford a new IMac and the latest creative suite but the printing business is not what it was years ago and updating all the time is just impossible.

thanks, I love the boards, so helpful.