Backup/Restore and security problems with CS3

Backup/Restore and security problems with CS3

I've just gotten off the phone with Adobe/Macromedia (now one company)
about licensing of the current (CS3) version of their products, such
as Dreamweaver, Fireworks Flash, and their Suites - popular web
development tools - when running under Microsoft Windows.

If the info their rep gave me is correct, backing up and restoring the
hard disk will disable their software license.

Adobe/Macrobedia says there is no way around this unless you use
"volume licensing", which is economically impractical for an
individual or small business.

Looking for an alternative, I asked whether it would run under
emulators, such as VMWARE, Bochs, QEMU, Virtual Box PC, or Flex86.
They say no. (However, I THINK a local institution runs CS3 under
VMWARE, but again using volume licenses.)

I tried it with the Trial version of Dreamweaver, and it seems to be
true for that. I ran it under a reasonably up to date Microsoft
Windows XP Pro S2, and backed it up using the Norton Ghost 2003
partition image function, running under the version of DS that came
with Windows XP. I restored it the next day, before the trial license
had expired. I tried creating a new boot sector, and doing a FRMAT/U/
S of the partition to try to (I think) re-do the bad block table
before restoring. (Though I think that only accesses the software bad
block table maintained by Windows, not the hardware bad block
replacement table maintained by the hard disk controller.)

Norton Ghost 2003 partition image has been good enough to back up all
my other software, including Microsoft 2003, Word Perfect
12, several encyclopedias, several web browsers and device
drivers, various DVD playing and writing software, and various other
stuff. But it is not a perfect image copy - it gets the partition id,
but doesn't quite get all the system files, and omits nominally unused
blocks, bad blocks, and stuff outside the partition, and it doesn't
back up motherboard or device firmware. Given Macromedia's technical
background in copy protection of various tape, software and DVD media
and hardware, they probably have the sophistication to use all or most
of those things, including firmware modification, so that I/
controllers detect when you do something they don't like.

For those of you who aren't system managers, it has been understood
for a long time that backing up computers is essential to good
computer security. For example, it is fairly common for Microsoft
updates to make a computer unusable. (For example, I recently had such
problems - apparently, when used in conjunction with various Microsoft
security updates, several of my external USB device drivers conflict,
causing me to be unable to access the control panel, and Microsoft
Silverlight caused various problems with Firefox.) If I had not first
done a back-up, everything would have been lost. Again, if one
contracts a computer virus or worm, or there is reason to believe the
system has been compromised, restoring a prior back-up is the only
safe approach to the first step towards full recovery. In order to
reliably write DVDs at full speed, it is desirable to turn off all
unneeded services, programs, startups and device drivers, one way of
doing which is to have a backed up S version that is so configured.
Finally, many software packages start up many tasks, programs and
drivers, which, if all allowed to run, will slow your system down by 1
or 2 orders of magnitude, and constantly report information back to
the internet - so good system managers try installation several
different ways, to find the minimum required. All these things require
one first do back-ups, and restore when required.

This is not the usual computer internet security problem. They only
turn off their own software. But their software suites typically cost
more than the rest of the PC combined, up to $5000. So it is something
to be considered carefully.

I fully understand that there are good reasons to prevent people from
"cloning" PCs to illegally duplicate or extend their software
licenses. But it makes using their software very risky. It effectively
greatly reduces the usable lifetime of the PCs running it, and opens
them up to near long-term security problems.

To reduce the probability of problems absent back-ups one could
dedicate PCs to only work on their software, and never do updates.
Good security procedures would then require one not connect to the
internet. But the main purpose of their software is to develop files
for and interface with the internet, so this is largely impractical.

Can any of you think of good ways of dealing with this, if one wishes
to use Adobe/Macromedia software under Microsoft Windows?