Software Deployment

After dealing with Adobe support and them telling me that automating the installation of Adobe Creative Suite was not possible...., that had to be changed.

Here is what you will need to do to automate the install. There is a bit of effort, but once you are finished, you have a fully automated way of installing Creative Suite and still using thier install source, installation options, and uninstall options.

Here is the steps taken:

1. Take a machine and perform the complete manual installation with all the applications. Once completed, a .log file will be created in your %TEMP% directory called "SuiteInstaller.log". This will contain the steps taken during the entire install like each install string for each component (eg. Photoshop CS, Illustrator CS, etc.). These install strings will be used later. Take a copy of this file to remember the install commands for each application.

2. Once the install is completed, make a backup of the Adobe Creative Suite Installshield Instlalation Product folder (%PROGRAMFILES%\Installshield Installation Information\PRODUCT_GUID). This will be required on all machines that you will be automating. Also, export the registry key in the HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstal\PRODUCT_GUID. You will required this as well. Save these two things in a safe place.

3. the PRODUCT_GUID that you have just save will have 2 files that will be important during the installs of the other components. "PRODUCT_GUID\required\abcpy.ini" & "PRODUCT_GUID\required\suites.sif". The "abcpy.ini" file will be modified for each application that will be installed (the way I found this out was to perform the entire manual install, while each specific application was installing, I went into the PRODUCT_GUID\required folder and took a copy of the abcpy.ini file. Each one had some differeneces for each application).

4. Now on a clean machine, copy the PRODUCT_GUID folder that you backed up from the existing install, and import the registry key for the unsinstall PRODUCT_GUID.

5. Using the SuitesInstaller.log as a reference take each application and install them using the silent installation commands found in SuitesInstaller.log. Before each install is performed remember to modify the "PRODUCT_GUID\required\abcpy.ini" file for the specific requirements per application.

6. For each application that is installed, copy the suites.sif file to the required location (also made note of for each application in the SuitesInstaller.log").

7. The final step is to make a registry change to Photoshop CS Uninstall registry key to include the serial number (for some reason it does not get set properly during this install).

A lot of stuff to deal with here, but if you wrap it in an installation automation tool, this is a fairly clean way to automate the installation of Adobe Creative Suite without completely repackaging it.