But you cannot serialize CS6 products to get to the page requesting your Adobe Id.

For example,

Go to Adobe Licensing Website, downloaded Production Premium upgrade per the terms of my upgrade coupon.

1st attempt to install

     Respond that I have a license key.

     Enter Lincese Key

     Watch as installer is stuck in an endless loop - the is no cancel button and PDapp.exe cannot navigate my authentication proxy.

2nd attempt

     Install as a trial

     Open software

     Get the trial wizard, three opitons: Buy Now, License this software, Continue Trial

     Click License this software

     bombs out: giving the message  "Internet connection required for subscriptions. You need an Internet connection to start a subscription. Please connect to the Internet and click Retry. If you have a serial number, please click Enter Serial Number to continue."

     Click Enter serial number.

     Enter Lincese Key

     Watch as installer is stuck in an endless loop - the is no cancel button and PDapp.exe cannot navigate the authentication proxy.*

So I think the problem is not with activation, but with serialization, in that you cannot get to the offline activation "I cannot access the Internet" link without being serialized, but you cannot seem to serialize without an Internet connection.

And please, do not suggest that I disable the proxy, firewall or any other part of our security infrastructure. I work for a governement agency and have no say in security policy, or how those policy are enforced. If Adobe wants to build in all this manadatory phoning home, then Adobe needs to build products that can access the Internet at least as reliably as Microsoft Interent Explorer.

So just for fun I decided to see what would happen if I shut down my network card and tried an install. Turns out I was able to force the links to appear. Here's how I did it:

1. Installed Production Premium as trial.
2. Disabled my network adapter.
3. Ran the Installer again, it accepted my License Key, completed.
4. Launched Photoshop
5. Got a message that Internet was required for activation with a link "Having trouble connecting to the Internet?"
6. 
7. Clicked that link and got a second page for with the "This Computer cannot connect to the Internet" link
8. Lead to a third page with an Offline Activation button
9. This generated the request code, which I was able to use to get a response code and successfully activate Production Premium.

I attempted the same process to install Indesign and unfortunately no matter how many times I attempted it each time I got a message that the response code was invalid. So half way there with some of my upgrades.

It seems the key is to shut down the network altogether. If the activator detecs any kind of connection, it won;t give you the offline prompts. Hope this helps some others.

Adobe: please explain why you do not document this, but make bone-headed reccomendations like "disable the authentication proxy"? (like anyone working behind an authentication proxy has the authority to disable it!) Why did I spend an hour with a tech support rep digging around my system, when I clearly stated upfront that your tools could not navigate our security and that our security was absolute, inflexible and would not change? The rep should have told me in the first minute of the chat that I need to completely disable my network connection and install again.

I mean seriously this is four days invested in just trying to install legally licensed software and I am not done yet as InDesign hasn't activated yet.

If it is just your authentication proxy blocking your install/activation, you may not need to completely shut down the network to get this to work. See: http://forums.adobe.com/thread/1005256