KACE Product Support

Check the label you are using for your detect/deploy. I ran into a situation not long ago where they changed the wording on the Flash update and the latest updates didn't meet the lable criteria anymore.

Casey

The flash updates via the patch module never work for us. I always create a new distribution and deploy the updates that way.

djz

If you run it by hand (outside the KBOX) does the distribution install the update correctly?

I checked my latest patch listing, and flash stops at 10.1.82.76, so patch wise I'm assuming Lumension hasn't approved 10.1.85.3.

When you say the flash updates via the patch module never work, how so? Do they not deploy or are they not detected?

To deploy my flash updates I did the following:

1. I created a smart label called M_Flash to capture all my PCs that need flash.
2. I created a smart label called P_Flash to capture the latest flash updates.
3. I created a detect and deploy task that is limited to M_Flash machines and detects and deploys P_Flash patches. I scheduled the task to run during my weekly patch window.

So far the only trouble I've had has been when the titles of the patches change slightly, and break my smart labels.

Casey

10.1.85.3 arrived in patching last night.

Casey

Apparently, the question should have been "Is there any way to tell when a patch is downloaded", because the patch details are all listed as "last updated" on 9/25.
I will wait an evening to see if the patch starts deploying to machines.

To find out when a patch is downloaded, go to the patch detail of a specific patch and check the Last Updated column on the bottom of the page. It will show you the latest when it was downloaded. I hope that helps, if there is a fix for a specific patch it will show a newer date instead of an old date.

Luis

One thing I have run into with Flash is that it will sometimes not deploy because it "thinks" it is already installed. I have a smart label created that checks to see if Flash is listed in the installed software. If it isn't, I have a patch schedule that runs to install it. However, I started to receive complaints from users stating that they didn't have flash installed. Puzzled, I ran the schedule manually, and it ran on each of the PCs that was missing Flash (which was odd by itself, because the PCs used to have Flash). Much to my suprise, after the schedule was finished, the PCs still didn't have Flash. What I ended up finding was that the users were being prompted by Adobe to update their installs of Flash, but they had no admin rights, so the updater would attempt to install the latest version, fail, and in the process break their existing install of Flash. However, it left enough of itself behind that when the patch schedule ran, it passed all the checks to say "Flash already installed".

I ended up manually installing Flash for those PCs, and pushing out a script to disable the Adobe updater.

Casey

ORIGINAL: cmccracken

[snip] ... and pushing out a script to disable the Adobe updater.

Casey


I'd be interested in that script to push out. We are using automatic Adobe patching (Flash, Shockwave, Reader, Acrobat, CS4, CS5, ...) from KACE without problems except when a user gets the occasional request to update!

Hey Rich,

I'm not sure if this is the best way to present what I use, but here goes.

The attached zip (I had to rename it to a txt to upload) has two folders, one to Disable Flash, and one to Disable Adobe Reader. The Flash folder includes a copy of the XML script from my KBOX as well as the mms.cfg file that has the config, and the setup batch file I use to put it in place. Essentially, Flash will look at the config file, and pull its settings from there, so every day at 10AM the script checks to see if the config is in place, and if not, pushes the file.

More info about the config from Adobe: http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/167/16701594.html

For Adobe Reader, the settings are controlled by a set of registry keys. I've included both the original keys (in a text file) as well as the XML from the kbox. I use the registry settings to disable the updater, as well as configure Reader for our users.

Casey

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