So to reinstall CS3 on a new machine you need to be the registered owner of the program and use that serial number to get to the download. They no longer work on the original media either - when you click on Bridge, for example, you get a Certificate failure but the main program Photoshop works. The download is 525MB on my system and Bridge and all the rest are listed but are non functioning. You can't reactivate using the original media but must download the replacement version on the website using that serial number. I have the original disks in the jewel case with the serial number so I didn't need to log into my account to obtain it. A special price is offered for the first year and then WHAMO! Now you have to log into your Adobe account and if your copy of CS3 is registered the serial number will be there. Support has stopped doing that now and tries to transfer all who call to sales to be sold the new product. What they did then was to give me a new serial number and said to check 'register never' when the activation screen pops up. OK got it figured out! Back in 2015 I bought a new desktop and reinstalled CS3 on it getting help from Adobe support. These updates were making an appearance yearly until a point was reached that Photoshop was perfected and Adobe decided to lease their product like PanaVision leased their lenses.The 'aging servers' line is simply to force the purchasers of the earlier versions to start paying an ongoing fee to use Photoshop. Adobe never 'updated' CS3 like, for example Dell would allow you to update a driver or Bios, but instead sold the update as CS4 which you and to buy anew if you wanted the update. The 'activation code' merely confirms that fact when you open the program to use and is not the program itself which is installed on my hard drive.

A quick search on Adobe's website shows that I am the registered owner of CS3 with that serial number. The 'aging activation servers' line that Adobe is using is just BS. I had a long online conversation with Adobe support last night and the bottom line is that they want to connect you with Adobe sales to purchase an upgrade which I assume would be to start paying a monthly/yearly fee to access a newer version online. Except for CS3 itself, the rest appear to be non-functional. It does include Adobe Bridge CS3, Adobe Device Central CS3 (apparently for a few of the old style 2006 type flip type cell phones), Adobe ExtenScrip Toolkit 2, and Adobe Stock Photos CS3. I have the original version of CS3 which I purchased from the Adobe website and chose to receive the disk rather than the download.

Photoshop cs3 non activation download