Not the easiest install

We did finally get it going with Adobe's help though.  Version CS5.5 was on the machine (1 of several copies we bought). We thus bought one CS6 at the "upgrade from CS5.5" pricing to get started with it.

The CS6 upgrade (a download) said the CS6 upgrade serial number we were emailed was valid, but that it could not find a valid upgrade product on the machine (despite CS5.5 long installed on it). This was not a trial version downloaded, we got it via the download link we were sent after the upgrade purchase via same email with the serial number.

It told us to go to our Adobe account online and try another number. Did that.
Problem though is that in our account, we have several serial numbers for Audition and it doesn't tell you which version.

The other problem of course is as of CS5.5 you can no longer get the specific serial number of what's installed on the machine from the program itself, which you could do with AA3 easily enough.  Can't imagine why they dropped you being able to see that once it's validly installed, must be a reason though.

Anyhow--- All the serial numbers we entered failed.  After a few tries the whole thing bombed saying we needed to contact support.  So we did. That led to a very long support chat during which had to give  reps all the CS5.5 and the new (1 only) CS6 serial numbers multiple times. They had us cancel the install that kept failing and start over again.  Then they walked us through obtaining a support code from the installer that would generate a "challenge" and we did that.  They then issued a new response code to put into the challenge query and that finally permitted us to install the new version. 

I was however very glad they stayed online during the whole process. Even the rep who handled that part agreed this was a very poor outcome for something that should be straightforward since CS5.5 is validly installed on the machine and has been running for a long time- even at times updating AIR and some help stuff.

While I'm glad they have such a challenge/response mechanism, all that was hard and cumbersome. Also  quite time consuming-- all this took over an hour with them online.  I remember some problems installing CS5.5 and a live rep offered to access our machine if we gave them permission, and we did. When it got to that point, and they had access, they resolved most of the install problems very quickly. But in today's saga, the rep said they could not do that for this problem (wonder why not).   This was on Win XP, SP3.

Anyhow, whole thing was anything but straightforward.  But at least it's installed now and we migrated most all "favorites" settings from CS5.5 to it.  Now I'll have to start running it.  I sure hope this won't be a problem that recurs when we want to put it on a second machine, but the rep said it very well might!!  Ultimately (like with 5.5) we will buy more licenses to be able to run it on other machines, but I'd sure like to know before doing so why with a problem like this they can't access your system if you give them permission -- since that 's what the rep that solved the CS5.5 install problems did some time ago.

All our CS5.5 licenses and the one for CS6 were bought as upgrades since we also ran multiple copies of AA3 (licensed) and AA2 before that. Maybe one of the Audition team knows why this would happen, but support didn't seem to though I was sure grateful for the help they did give us during all this.

So was the installer also rejecting your CS5.5 serial number in support of the upgrade?  When I installed CS6 it failed to see the installed CS5.5, but simply asked for its serial number instead and continued smoothly.  The same happened when I installed CS5.5.  At that time I put it down to the fact I was running 64-bit XP, which throws a lot of things (e.g. they say that SP3 is required, but the equivalent for the 64-bit version is SP2), but now I'm using 64-bit Windows 7 which is pretty commonplace.

Paul

So was the installer also rejecting your CS5.5 serial number in support of the upgrade?  When I installed CS6 it failed to see the installed CS5.5, but simply asked for its serial number instead and continued smoothly.  The same happened when I installed CS5.5.  At that time I put it down to the fact I was running 64-bit XP, which throws a lot of things (e.g. they say that SP3 is required, but the equivalent for the 64-bit version is SP2), but now I'm using 64-bit Windows 7 which is pretty commonplace.

Paul

I had exactly the same experience as pwhodges: CS5.5. installed on this machine, CS6 said it could not find a previous version (3.01 is also still installed), had to input CS5.5. serial number (after frantic search for disc), and then CS6 installed without further problem.

Unlike Paul, my OS is Win 7 32 bit.

Jeff

Yes, it was rejecting any of our valid CS5.5 serial numbers.  I think perhaps the problem may lie in the fact that now they offer several upgrade versions at different pricing. Obviously, the upgrade from CS5.5 to 6 is less costly than the upgrade from AA3 and below.  So I guess  they code the installer differently depending on which upgrade one buys.

Seems that coding is determined by the serial number one receives from purchase, because in this case it offered ONLY the choice of upgrading from CS5.5 once I input the CS6 serial number they sent. On the machine in question, both CS5.5 and AA3.01 are installed.

Without Adobe support being able to intervene though, there was just no way CS6 was going to install from the download we purchased, despite meeting all the eligibility criteria etc. At least they were able to get us going by instructing us on using a hidden feature in the installer that generates a challenge code, which support can then issue a response code for, thus unlocking the installer.

Once we got past that, CS6 installed in a normal way as one would expect.  The other slight glitch was at first the support rep claimed that the CS6 serial number emailed to us was NOT for CS6 but rather CS5.5!!  I had to give them the order number so they could trace it and then they said what I received indeed was a CS6 serial number!!  Lastly, as has been the case with CS5.5, following the online sessions I then received a survey invitation -- but in French, despite that we are in the US.  Luckily I know some French and clicking on its link did result in an English support survey! 

Even the online support rep felt all this was a pretty poor outcome for something that should be much simpler and apologized numerous times that this was taking so much time and trouble.  So perhaps Adobe knows of these problems-- hopefully they will work on another way to handle them. I'm sure piracy etc is a huge concern for them, but that should not be at the expense of longtime legitimate users like us who in fact have multiple valid licenses for many Adobe products- and for Audition going back to ver 1.5 and all since then. Gotta be a better way than wasting over an hour of both the user's and Adobe support's time just to do a valid upgrade.

What really worries me about this sort of thing is that I have just been through a huge waste of time with some Borland software.

I was trying to move the software from an old XP machine to a newer system running Windows 7. The forum for the remnants of Borland said that the software would run, and I had purchased 3 full versions, but for the last one I had just purchased an upgrade. The particular upgrade would not allow installation under Win 7.

I spent days trying everything I could think of and following advice. This included taking an image of the XP machine and installing that as a virtual machine on the Windows 7 hardware, but it just would not work. In the end I had to buy more memory for the old laptop and just hope it keeps working.

It's all very well jumping through hoops now, but how will it be if you have to change hardware in a few years' time?

After all the above, I'm just wondering what may happen when we try to put the 1 valid CS6 copy on a 2nd machine.
Even the support reps wondered that in light of what went on with the CS5.5 to CS6 upgrade install.

So far, in limited playing around with CS6, I do like it and applaud the features that have come back.
A crucial one for us is ability to export as sep files etc and it seems to do that again, which is great.

Also grouping is very handy to have back, though I  would like to be able to copy a group that is
on more than one track and then paste the whole thing elsewhere without Audition opening a bunch of
new tracks.  It seems to only know the first track where you try to paste a group copied from elsewhere.

If the group is say on trks 1-2-3 I can't seem to paste it to those same tracks later on in the timeline.
The first track will paste correctly, but the others paste into newly created tracks, which I'd like to avoid.

Maybe I'm missing something and there's a way to do that?  Anyone know?

This won't be of any help in the current discussion, I suspect, but may be of interest to others reading through this thread at some point.

For reasons other than access to AA CS6 (which is unlikely to supplant AA3 for now) I've signed up to the Creative Cloud suite of Adobe software, which does of course include Audition. I've not looked into the fine print with regard to the number of installs this permits me, but I've had no problem putting AA CS6 onto two machines from a single account. There's been no requirement to get involved with serial numbers and the like. For me it was a no-brainer - we were already paying Adobe €19/month for the pleasure of having Dreamweaver and they offered a discounted rate of €29/month for 12 months for the full suite of up to 16 applications (I say up to - I get 12 offered on my 32-bit XP PC and 16 on my 64-bit Win7 PC).

The installation of CS6 through this method has had no impact on existing installations of Audition which run happily alongside the new version. I'm sure that in time it'll cost me as much as or more than buying the full suite but for now I'm happy with what I'm getting for my money - and for the fact that the Adobe Application Manager handles all the product registration issues. I guess if we stopped paying then it would all stop working - but for now that's better than paying out for the full software and it not working!

[Frontier Design]

We have foreign client who also moved to the full cloud model last year.  He works at a school and told me it became cost-prohibitive for them to keep owning multiple copies of the many Adobe products they use, even though I'd assume they ran educational versions (not sure though) .  Initially he was put off somewhat by the cloud model, but after over a year working that way, he seems more comfortable with it.

By the way, just heard from Frontier Design that any support from them for CS6 for Alphatrack is pretty unlikely. Here's a quote from what I received:
Thanks for sending us your message but I don't think this will work.  The AlphaTrack does support Mackie control but it's controls are for Ableton Live MCU and so the functionality won't be the same as for the Mackie mode in AA CS6.  You may get limited functionality or none at all.  And since the AlphaTrack has been discontinued for several years I don't think that this will be supported in the near future.  Sorry.

Didn't know it was discontinued. Maybe with some messing around it can be made to work (or more of it made to work).  I did try enabling Mackie control on CS6 since on the 1 machine AA3 is also installed and so is the Alphatrack (and that of course works, using the same "AA2" file Frontier has on their site).  CS6 does find the transport buttons on the Alphatrack but nothing else, though maybe with some mapping it can do more.  I'm not well versed in control protocols but there are others on this forum who are, so maybe one of them who has an Alphatrack will want to delve into that more.