Adobe has acknowledged the issue, albeit without a real fix for the problem. It offers three “solutions” to the problem, which is due to a System Serial number that exceeds 12 characters. If you’ve ever had your motherboard replaced on your Mac and the tech forgot to transfer your serial number into the NVRAM, you likely see “SystemSerialNum” when you open System Profiler. Apparently this crashes CS3. (Geez!)

For me this issue has been a long time coming: I’ve had the top-case on my MacBook replaced at least 3 times, and amongst those trips to AppleCare the techs forgot to re-place the system identifier sticker back on my computer. By the time it was time for a new motherboard, they had no clue what my serial number was so they couldn’t enter it. I have it on my original invoice though.

There’s a guy on InsanelyMac though that seems to have picked up the image to a Serial Number Utility (for Technicians obviously).

You can check out the discussion here: http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/lofiversion/index.php/t28529.html where you’ll also find the download links.

I did it and it solved the issue! I’m set to go!