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CS5 Update, May 2010:

From what I can tell the process described below can be used for Adobe CS5. There are a few additional entries that need to be made to the hosts file.‘Click here to view the list’

“License Expired. Licensing for this product has expired.” – Adobe CS4, 2009

In ‘Defeating the Adobe CS4 ‘License Expired’ dialog in OS X’ we explained how to reset the registration and serial number of the CS4 Suite.

In this post we describe how to shut CS4 up. If your Adobe apps are allowed to communicate with or ping the Adobe mother ship, or activate.abobe.com, any new serial numbers you enter will ultimately be rejected. So we must block the CS4 apps making outbound network connections to the Internet.

We will describe two methods in OS X for preventing CS4 pinging the Adobe activation servers.

The first is to use Little Snitch, an app for OS X that creates rules for blocking the outbound communication of apps and services. The drawback here is that Little Snitch is commercial software, although Pirate Bay might disagree, and that it is a heavy handed means of shutting only a couple of applications up.

The second method for blocking the chatter between CS4 apps and the Adobe activation servers on your mac is to edit the hosts file (/etc/hosts). There are several apps that can be used to edit the hosts file. At this time I recommend using the updated TextEdit approach (Oct 6 2009). See TextEdit instructions below and also comment #249:

- HostsWidget

- Gas Mask 0.4

-Terminal. You can use a Terminal text editor like emacs, vi, nano and pico or you can add individual entries to the hosts file by issuing the following command in Terminal:

echo “127.0.0.1 adobe.activate.com” >> /etc/hosts

In the above command we have added an entry for adobe.activate.com. You can replace adobe.activate.com with the other domains in the list and add all the domains individually.

To be sure the entries were successfully added to the hosts file run the following command to look at the hosts file:

cat /etc/hosts

TEXTEDIT UPDATE!!! OCT 6 2009 – The following instructions for the use of TextEdit have been updated, see comment #249. It details a more direct approach for editing the hosts file with root privileges by issuing the following command:

sudo /Applications/TextEdit.app/Contents/MacOS/TextEdit /etc/hosts

and then simply follow steps 8, 9 and 10. That’s it!

The following instructions for TextEdit are now deprecated. See the new ones as stated above.

- TextEdit. To edit the hosts file in TextEdit we must do so from within the root account. In OS X the root account is disabled by default so the first step is to enable the root user in OS X. Quit all Adobe apps, then;

1. Open Directory Utility (/Applications/Utilities)

2. Enable the Root User (Edit > Enable Root User)

3. Choose a password for the root account

4. Logout of your admin account.

5. Login to the root account. Select ‘Other’ in the Login Window. The name of the account is root (lowercase).

6. In Finder menu > Go > Go To Folder. Type /etc and click ‘OK’

7. Ctrl-click the hosts file and ‘Open With’ TextEdit.

8. Copy/Paste  the following entries to the hosts file, making sure all the copied entries are pasted in between the ebtries “255.255.255.255 broadcasthost”
and “::1 localhost” (see pic):

127.0.0.1 adobe.activate.com
127.0.0.1 activate.adobe.com
127.0.0.1 practivate.adobe.com
127.0.0.1 ereg.adobe.com
127.0.0.1 activate.wip3.adobe.com
127.0.0.1 wip3.adobe.com
127.0.0.1 3dns-3.adobe.com
127.0.0.1 3dns-2.adobe.com
127.0.0.1 adobe-dns.adobe.com
127.0.0.1 adobe-dns-2.adobe.com
127.0.0.1 adobe-dns-3.adobe.com
127.0.0.1 ereg.wip3.adobe.com
127.0.0.1 activate-sea.adobe.com
127.0.0.1 wwis-dubc1-vip60.adobe.com
127.0.0.1 activate-sjc0.adobe.com

9. The hosts file will now look something like this (note how the entries were pasted between “255.255.255.255 broadcasthost” and “::1 localhost”):

10. Save the changes. Quit TextEdit.

11. Logout of the root account.

12. Login to your admin account

13. Open Directory Utility (/Applications/Utilities)

14. Disable the Root User (Edit > Disable Root User)

15. Quit Directory Utility

16. Open Terminal (/Applications/Utilities) and type:

sudo dscacheutil -flushcache (10.5)
sudo lookupd –flushcache (10.4)

17. Enter your admin password when prompted.

18. Relaunch Adobe apps. Enter your serial. Done.

“Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac cannot start because Microsoft Office is already in use.”

- MS Office 2008, 2009



When MS Office 2008 for Mac issues this message it means there’s another copy of Office on the home / office network running with the same serial number. It may also mean OS X Leopard’s built-in firewall may be turned off. If your built-in firewall is turned on when installing Office 2008 you will see the dialog box below on application launch asking you whether you will allow ‘Microsoft Word.app to accept incoming network connections ?’



Denying this request will prevent Microsoft Word being detected and going into System Preferences > Security > Firewall and selecting “Allow only essential services” or “Set access for specific applications and services” will stop Microsoft Word accepting incoming network connections and prevent the ‘cannot start’ dialog from appearing.



However, if you are a Microsoft Entourage user you must allow Entourage access to incoming network connections. It is an email client after all! Consequently Entourage users will have to find a new serial and reset the registration information of Office 2008.

To reset the registration information and serial number of Office 2008 for Mac you must quit all Office apps and delete the following files:

1. /Users/Your Home Folder/Library/Preferences/Microsoft/Office 2008/Microsoft Office 2008 Settings.plist

2. /Applications/Microsoft Office 2008/Office/OfficePID.plist

Now relaunch any of the Office 2008 apps and you’ll be prompted to enter a new serial and new registration information. You may also uninstall and reinstall Office 2008 to achieve the same end, although this is much more time consuming and relies on you having the installer.