Software Deployment

Stop and start the printer spooler service on install.

Thanks dm1, already tried that - any other suggestions? [;)] Some more info which I should have posted to start with..

The 2 custom actions have conditions on them (same conditions on both) :

((&Distiller=3 And !Distiller=2) Or (REINSTALL><"Distiller") Or ((REINSTALL="ALL") And (!Distiller=3) And (REINSTALLMODE><"a"))) And (Privileged)

So it's obv something to do with these, more specifically the INSTALLSTATE values..

I don't think Acrobat 6 will install unless the user has admin rights.......thats what the Privilege part is about. I ended up repackaging the whole thing.

Thanks MSIMaker - it will install fine as a locked down user if it's not advertised though - just a problem with advertising.

I started out snapping the whole install, it was all working fine but noticed problems during uninstall.. If I had another local printer installed besides the Adobe one, it gets shafted which is obviously not ideal. Spent a while trying to find out why but couldn't see anything obvious - guess you didn't have this problem?

Currently I'm just snapping the CAs (CreatePortMonitor and CreateAdobePDFPrinter) which do the Printer install - hopefully I can then remove them in the transform and set it up using another method.

I'm keen to use the vendor MSI if possible - I may end up just making it a machine based app so I don't need to worry about advertising - real annoying though cos I've spent ages on this app to try and keep it within our standards (i.e. user based install with advertised shortcuts) grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr [:@]

Out of interest - did you just use Wise to repackage the install, and if so which version are you on?

I have completely repackaged it because it failed to work with our redirected user profiles and offline files setup. The PDFMaker.dot file has to be installed to the users H drive in our place because the Office Startup folders are located there.

I used Wise PS 5.x and Wininstall to snap it.

The main issue was getting the virtual printer driver working and also Wise's problems with inporting registry files with MultiSZ keys. I created a Wisescript to insert the MultiSZ keys as a seperate entity.

The other issue was that some of the InstallPath keys in the registry required a trailing backslash. ie. C:\Adobe\Acrobat 6.0\distillr\

Other than that its fine and I've completed both editions Standard and Pro.

There is also some registry keys and file folders which require permissioning for standard users. I can send you the list if you like.

Thanks for the info Jim, much appreciated.


Regards,
Rob.

ORIGINAL: MSIMaker

I have completely repackaged it because it failed to work with our redirected user profiles and offline files setup. The PDFMaker.dot file has to be installed to the users H drive in our place because the Office Startup folders are located there.

I used Wise PS 5.x and Wininstall to snap it.

The main issue was getting the virtual printer driver working and also Wise's problems with inporting registry files with MultiSZ keys. I created a Wisescript to insert the MultiSZ keys as a seperate entity.

The other issue was that some of the InstallPath keys in the registry required a trailing backslash. ie. C:\Adobe\Acrobat 6.0\distillr\

Other than that its fine and I've completed both editions Standard and Pro.

There is also some registry keys and file folders which require permissioning for standard users. I can send you the list if you like.


Hi, MSIMaker.

Could you send me the list, if it is possible.

I have got both working, but would be interested to see how you did it. We use H drives to, I had to modifiy the registry so the users can save the Distiller settings to there own H Drives. As it defaults to the "All Users" documents and settings folder. As the normal users dont have permission in there.

Cheers.

Hi Gunner,

I'll send you my list of permissions or post them here on Monday. I also had to make a change to the package regarding the H drive.
We use roaming profiles and if a user logs onto a workstation without Acrobat installed they get a macro exec error because the pdfmaker.dot is part of their profile. So I changed it back to the local disk as per the vendor install and it seems to work ok The only difference is that the context menu doesnt work if the doc is on the H drive. Weird but I'm going with it as it is. I also changed the distiller options to the C drive because if the H drive isn't available offline, the user will get a failure if Distiller can't find the job options. Try C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 8.0\Distllr\Settings.

The other thing I found out is that Explorer (as part of the "FIRST" PDF creation process) creates a number of DDE Exec keys in HKCR\Applications\Winword.exe that users wont have rights to do, so I added permissions to that key as well. I only found that one today.

You also have to set the printupg.pnf file to not uninstall as well otherwise all other postscript printers will stop working.

I think I better send Bob Kelly my notes to add to the Knowledgebase regarding Acrobat because its getting quite extensive now.

Most ppl won't need to repackage Acrobat but ppl using AD to deploy will have issues with the vendor install because it fails to uninstall correctly and is a true pain in the butt.

In order for Acrobat 6.x to run correctly for unprivileged users, you must allow the general users (e.g. the BUILTIN\Users group) change/write privileges to the following directories:

These Registry keys need their permissions opened up:

HKCR\AFormAut.App
HKCR\AFormAut.App.1
HKCR\CLSID\{7CD069A1-50AA-11D1-B8F0-00A0C9259304}
HKCR\TypeLib\{7CD06992-50AA-11D1-B8F0-00A0C9259304}\1.0
HKCR\TypeLib\{78165D71-DF28-11D3-9A89-005004A56D53}\1.0
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Adobe\Acrobat Distiller\5.0\PrinterJobControl
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Applications\Winword.exe

These directories need their permissions opened:

\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 5.0\Distillr\Settings
\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 5.0\Distillr\Tmp
\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Color
\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\TypeSpt
\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Web
\Windows\System32\spool\drivers\w32x86\3

And, by the way, the program should generate the following files itself upon opening. Make sure you change the permissions on their folders (or the files themselves) before you run Acrobat as a local administrator, otherwise the general users won't be able to overwrite them as needed:
\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\ColorACECache.lst
\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\TypeSptAdobeFnt.lst