Software Deployment

Heya.
There is a "corporate" edition ( Volume License Key is what they call it i think ), but you need to talk to Adobe about getting one of those, and I believe that you need to purchase quite a few to get this.
I too am looking for a way around teh activation for our organisation....

Seems to be a problem affecting a lot of packagers judging by the similar postings in other forums.

We have the corporate version (can be identified by NACT appearing within the product code) and packaged it with very few problems.

We could find no way of disabling the internet activation request on the standard version, for my money I don't think there is a way round this (it wouldn't be in Adobe's interests to make it so).

I solved this problem by creating the following key:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE]\SOFTWARE\Adobe\Adobe Acrobat\7.0\AdobeViewer]
"Registered"=dword:00000002

I did a snapshot with Installrite and that is what was created when I selected the 'do not remind me again' option.

I hope this fixes it for you. This worked for me on Adobe Standard Edition.

I think we are talking about Activation rather than Registration.
Activation needs to be done with a time period or the product will not run, whereas registration is simply submitting details and will not stop the prouct from working.

Within sight of what ecris Ret has. I confirm that this key makes it possible not to make enrigistrement via Internet or the telephone. It is the only key of parameter setting in HKLM the others are in HKCU or the hives of the others profile... :o)

Hi
Can any one help me in "Adobe Acrobat 7 Professional " , It doesn't even Activate when installed as Normal User
Says it doesn't have admin rights.

Thanks

It is trying to write to a registry key that users don't have permission to write to.

If you look here the inforamation for version 6 might help you.

http://www.appdeploy.com/packages/detail.asp?id=184

Stumbled across a solution that works...

First you have to register and unlock the version of Acrobat 7
Then do a "Move activation" from the tools menu in Acrobat7 (menas that it makes the licence key available between computers.

I then took a snapshot of what happens when you register a installed Acrobat 7 and came up with 1 file and 1 registry entry.

the file is a .dat file in your application data\Adobe systems\Product licenses folder

Registry is in HKCU\Software\Adobe\Adobe Acrobat\ALM\"same as the .dat file"\ActivationStatus=1

But I think you quite easy get the right registration data if you snapshot the installation of the licence only..

Good luck...

Hey guys

Working on preparing Acrobat 7.0 Pro for my users, and cannot seem to get the install to run in silent mode. I've used Installshield Tuner 7.0 and input our serial number, user name, and company name, as well as accepted the EULA, and done some other small modifications, including adding the setup.exe /s /v /qn line (also tried just using setup.exe /qn, as a poster on Adobe's msg boards suggested, with no luck).

I then save the complete package to another location. Create a new GPO, add the .msi and the .mst file, publish the app to my test user. When I go to add/remove as my test user and select Install for the app, I get all the installation dialogue, just as I would were I running the install from cd. The only difference seems to be that the Company name, user name, and serial number fields are already populated, so a portion of the .mst appears to be functioning.

How can I force this app to run silently while using W2K GPO deployment?

I've found the msiexec command line (MsiExec.exe /i AcroPro.msi /qb- ISX_SERIALNUMBER=%ISX_SERIALNUM% TRANSFORMS=AcroPro.mst EULA_ACCEPT=YES USERNAME="%USERNAME%" COMPANYNAME="%COMPANYNAME%" INSTALLDIR="%INSTALLDIR%" ) under the faq for this package on this website, but that won't help me in the GPO arena, will it? When creating the GPO, I find no place to input cmd line arguments (and actually just discovered the place to specifiy the .mst, duh).

Since GPO accepts .zap files, I tried creating a .zap file and using the msiexec cmd line arguments, which may be barking entirely up the wrong tree, but this app is chafing my... resilience, so I'm trying everything I can think of.

Any ideas?

Thanks for the help
Sandar

Hi Sandar

You have to change your command line to setup.exe /s /v/qn (with no space between "/v" and "/qn").
With the parameter /v you can send parameters to msiexec, but its important that there is no space between this parameter and the parameters for msiexec.
You can also add some other parameters, like a .mst. You have to quote it, if you are using more then one, for example setup.exe /s /v"/qn TRANSFORMS=yourTransform.mst".

Another way is to add the paramters directly in the setup.ini File. In the section [Startup] is an entry called CmdLine (if not, you can create it). With this entry you can also send parameters to msiexec. So you can add a line "CmdLine=/qn TRANFORMS=yourTransform.mst" in the setup.ini [Startup] section and it should install the app silently.

I hope you give me a feedback if this help was usefull for you and which solution you used.

Regards
Thomas

/Edit

perhaps this link can also help you:
http://helpnet.installshield.com/robo/projects/installshield11helplib/IHelpSetup_EXECmdLine.htm

Hi Scanman & MSIMaker

I greatly Appritiate your help, now it's working fine.

Thanks

Well, guys, this is just getting more depressing. I could've walked around and installed this on the 30 users' desktops by now, but I'd like to beat it instead.

So, I took your suggestion, Ret, and removed my space b/t /v and /qn in the CmdLine portion. And it still behaves exactly the same, the install acts just like a normal install except that the Company Name, User Name, and serial number portion fields are populated. I have to click next a few times, select English, the Eula comes up, the whole annoying ball of wax I'm trying to avoid.

This is what my setup.ini looks like below. The AcroPro.mst was created using Installshield Tuner 7.0 for Adobe and removing a few product components, accepting the EULA, and adding setup.exe /s /v"/qn TRANSFORMS=acropro.mst" as the Package setup command.

[Info]
UI=1000
Name=INTL
Version=1.00.000
DiskSpace=8000 ;DiskSpace requirement in KB

[Startup]
CmdLine=setup.exe /s /v"/qn TRANSFORMS=acropro.mst"
SuppressWrongOS=Y
ScriptDriven=0
ScriptVer=1.0.0.1
DotNetOptionalInstallIfSilent=N
OnUpgrade=1
RequireExactLangMatch=0404,0804
Product=Adobe Acrobat 7.0 Professional
PackageName=AcroPro.msi
MsiVersion=2.0.2600.0
EnableLangDlg=N
UI=1000
DoMaintenance=Y
ProductCode={AC76BA86-1033-0000-7760-100000000002}
ProductVersion=7.0.0
SuppressReboot=Y
PackageCode={019A37FD-C335-40A1-898B-5ECAD276D761}

[SupportOS]
Win95=1
Win98=1
WinME=1
WinNT4=1
Win2K=1

[Win95]
MajorVer=4
MinorVer=0
MinorVerMax=1
BuildNo=950
PlatformId=1

[Win98]
MajorVer=4
MinorVer=10
MinorVerMax=11
BuildNo=1998
PlatformId=1

[WinME]
MajorVer=4
MinorVer=90
MinorVerMax=91
BuildNo=3000
PlatformId=1

[WinNT4]
MajorVer=4
MinorVer=0
MinorVerMax=1
BuildNo=1381
PlatformId=2
ServicePack=1536

[Win2K]
MajorVer=5
MinorVer=0
MinorVerMax=1
BuildNo=2195
PlatformId=2

[Languages]
count=1
default=409
key0=409
[AcroPro.msi]
Type=0
Location=AcroPro.msi
[Setup.bmp]
Type=0
[instmsiw.exe]
Type=0
Location=instmsiw.exe

CmdLine=setup.exe /s /v"/qn TRANSFORMS=acropro.mst"

you only have to add the parameters for msiexec to this line.
so your line have to look like this:

CmdLine=/qn TRANSFORMS=acropro.mst
or perhaps
CmdLine=TRANSFORMS=acropro.mst /qn
(i think there is no difference)

when you add this to setup.ini, you don't have to use any other parameters for setup.exe than /s
so you can edit setup.ini and then make a call "setup.exe /s" and it should use your transform and install it in the background.

hope this helps

mfg

Well, I finally figured out I needed to select "Basic" for the level of User interaction on the properties of the GPO. It defaults to Maximum. So, I finally actually achieved a silent install yesterday. WHoohoo!

Except that thereafter, opening My Computer, the Control Panel, the Printers folder; all of these things cause the entire friggin app to reinstall. So I thought it might have something to do with the complexity of the changes I made using the Installshield Tuner. So I went back and *only* added the Company Name, User Name, and Serial Number. That's it, no other changes. Repackaged the MSI, recreated the GPO, tested with my test user and... Still did that reinstall crap. So the pressure was on and we had to do a walk-around and install from the cd today (as copied up to our network), so Adobe won. Ultimately, I don't feel so bad, because I tried so many things. My ultimate assumption is simply that Adobe didn't test this thing all the way through to deployment at all, because it just doesn't work correctly. But thanks for your help, Ret.

Hi.
I have the same problem with deploying Adobe Acrobat 7.0 Std. to my users. It can't be activated by a user. They have to have admin rights to do it. I have tried to tweak the registry on a test computer, giving a test user full access to the registry and full access NTFS-permissions. But still no luck [:(]
Is there anyone out there who have the solution for this activity mystery?

Regards from Morten

Hi All,
Can any body pls help me to get rid of the activation window that appears directly after launching adobe acrobat 7.0, I have tried all the possible answers that i found on the net, but nothing helps, I did call Adobe Acrobat support and asked for an explanation, the only answer was if it is one user Licens then u have to activate the application, there is no way to get rid of that, but if it is many user licens then the Activation window doesn't appear att all.....now I don't know if I shall take that for an answer...

Has any body solved the problem.. please response

//malina

I produced an MST really quickly with the tuner but then discovered the activation on first run too. I guess we need to be careful with this sort of thing. Trying to create a package which skips the activation will solve the deployment problem but it comes pretty close to a 'cracked' version which you might get from a p2p site.... Looks like you have to buy a large quantity to get the corporate version of the software which doesn't need the activaiton so it was a no go for us..

Hi,
I was wondering if someone could help me. After installing Vista I installed Adobe Acrobat Pro 7.0 registered and activate it. I then updated it to 7.09.

Now everytime that I try to use it I get the error message:
"Activation requires that you have administrative rights on this computer. Please log on as administrator and try again".
I am logged on as administrator with full access.

I also notice that the Activate and transfer tabs under the help tab are greyed out.

What can I do to get this thing to work??

If this was a packaging exercise and it were me, I'd snapshot the install the way you did it: install/activate/update, then snap it the way it *should* have been done: install/update/activate, then compare the two. However, it sounds to me like you have a simple one-user installation issue. In that case, just uninstall everything and install in the correct sequence.

Thanks fo rthe reply.
Will it let me re-register it again? The buttons are grayed out to transfer registration.

I wouldn't know, I'm afraid, but I imagine that when you uninstall it, it will remove registration information. If not, you may have to obliterate the registry information manually (having backed it first, of course.

BTW, this is a software packaging forum, not a Helpdesk. Your question ought to have been posted on Adobe's forum. Start here