Software Deployment

Ewall,

Would you mind sharng your Adobe Package? I am trying to distribute Acrobat Reader 6.0.1 via SMS, but I cant seem to uninstall previous version, and get an appropriate .mst file to remove the ads, etc.

I tried to download teh file from your web site (AdobeReader6.zip), but I get an error when opening the file "The compressed folder is invalid or corrupted".

Thanks

John Inge Hanson from the Wise Newsgroups pointed me in the right direction to solve this one... In Adobe's Reader 6.0.1 MSI, the component ReaderRegistryIntegration contains all the registry keys related to file associations with the .PDF extension and controlling the Reader plugin for IE. It has a condition that prevents it from installing if the full Acrobat product version 4, 5 or 6 is installed. Removing the condition allows these associations to be installed all the time.

In our case, the trouble was caused because our Reader 6 package is also uninstalling Reader 5 at the same time, which removed the old associations but didn't apply the new ones, leaving the system with nothing. Heh!

I just sent you a private message to email me at e@ewall.org so I can send you the ZIP file...

...Then I realized I should probably comment on removing the previous versions, so here goes:

Adobe's Reader 6.0.1 package looks like it's already set to uninstall some previous versions of Reader that Adobe released as MSI's, but that probably won't cover everything. If you've got older pre-MSI versions or your own MSI packages, you'll need to add some support for removing those on your own.

If you've got Wise Package Studio or InstallShield Admin Studio, with a little elbow grease you can make this work quite nicely. I have some tips to get you started at my Creating an Uninstall-First Upgrade MSI article. Keep asking questions here or on email if you need some more help...

I want to lockdown Acrobat reader options? I want to remove options such as Save, Open file, remove any links to other web sites including Adobe’s. How can I accomplish this? I would like to do this via group policy. Any suggestions?

marqjcm If you check here http://itninja.com/link/acrobat-reader-6.0-deployment-notes-from-the-field

There is plenty of tips on removing advertising and so forth from Reader........sif let the users upgrade reader themselves :)

Acrobat writer / reader 5 intergrates with internet explorer using active x.

The reason that you will not be able to view pdfs via IE after 6 is installed is due to the lack of active x intergration.

To correct this problem use the following command.

%*WinSysDir%\regsvr32.exe /s "C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 5.0\Reader\ActiveX\pdf.ocx"

obviously replace the windows directory macro if you are using a different location or do not have the macro, and point the directory to the one in which you have writer.

This command forces the acrobat active x ocx file to be registered with windows allowing the os to then intergrate IE and Acrobat 5.

This will solve the problem of intergration with Internet explore if you do not mind using acrobat writer 5 to read pdf files.

I am assuming that acrobat reader 6 can be set the same way using the path :

C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 6.0\Acrobat\ActiveX

and possibly registering the gbdetect.dll as well. I assume conflicts are occuring since reader 6 and writer 5 use different paths. I havnt been able to test your specific problem out in our test labs since we now run writer 6 .

If you are still unable to get acrobat reader 6 running as default it will be due to writer 5's registery enterys. Let me know and i will email you a list of registry changes writer 5 makes and also that reader 6 make ( based on clean installs ) so that you can deduce the registry keys to remove / update.

Found the answer

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Software\Adobe\Acrobat\Exe

The default value has the path to the program IE will use. (Acrobat or Reader)

Thanks to J Visick who posted this on the Adobe forums.


Phil.