Transferring Adobe Creative Suite from PC to Mac
I’ll make this short to divert any misconceptions: if you’re running anything anything older than the current version (currently 5.5 or older), you can’t.
I recently moved from PC to Mac, which meant my PC copy of CS4 wasn’t going to do me a whole lot of good. So, after much research, misinformation, and bottomed-out foxholes, I sadly learned that your Adobe license key is only good for one operating system. I learned this by trying to activate my license number on a Mac version of CS4. Even de-activating my old PC copy didn’t do anything; the license key was in the wrong format for Mac. It’s worth noting that I had a student edition key, purchased from when I was in college, but I assume the same would be true for home/commercial licensing as well.
However, for those that have lost CDs or what have you, there’s an excellent resource for downloading trial versions (a trial version can be fully activated into a full version with a legitimate license key):
Note: you must be signed into Adobe.com to download some trials.
While trial versions are no small consolation to those of us that have to re-buy the software for switching platforms, I wanted to at least contribute to the number of solid, informed answers on the topic. Oh, and in my research, I discovered a little Adobe gem:
Bonus