How to distribute adobe acrobat reader in SCCM 2007
Hello,
I installed SCCM 2007 and my clients are able to find site code and i can able to distribute the Microsoft products like MS office and all but now i want to distribute adobe acrobat reader to my clients can anyone help me with this.......
Thanks in advance.....
Regards,
Lokesh.
Answers
Hi Lokesh
sorry i took a while
the command line i use is msiexec.exe /q ALLUSERS=2 /m MSIHPSJR /i "AcroRead.msi" TRANSFORMS=mytransform.mst
if you run a standard install on a machine the msi package is extracted to the install folder in program files, use the transform creator provided by Adobe to create your own transform file, put the transform file in the same folder as the msi file, then create your package. i create a new program within the package and use the command line as above.
hope that all makes sense.
Tony
- Marked As Answer byEric C. MattoonMSFT, ModeratorTuesday, December 23, 2008 11:22 PM
All Replies
Please add details ... ConfigMgr seems to work fine because you can deploy office. Maybe you should have a look at www.appdeploy.com to get help for Acrobat.
General rant - people, please look at the forum titles and post to the correct forum :-)
This is a software distribution question, and really should be posted to the Configuration Manager - Software Distribution folder. The only reason I mention this is that this is the 3rd post I've had to move there today.
We have many forums here (14 if I recall) all with unique purposes. Please try to post to the correct one so you get the appropriate people looking at your posts.
Now, Torsten is correct. If you can deploy Office, then software distribution is working correctly. So that means it is an application specific issue with the command line.
Hi Lokesh
is it a problem building the package or are you getting errors with the installation ?
i have Adobe 9 installing really well from my SCCM
Adobe now produce some tools to create the transforms and such but you need to extract the msi first.
Tony
Assuming you are starting from the beginning you would start here: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/distribute.html
Follow the instructions and they'll eventually send you an email with a link to all the tools you need to customize your adobe package. The nice thing about their customization tool is it does everything for you for your package, you don't even need to write a batch file to suppress reboots or to hide the UI.
Hi Tonyc,
i distributed office 2003 with no errors and no problems but i think i have to change command line to distibute acrobat reader but i dint know what command line i have to give......
Hi Lokesh
sorry i took a while
the command line i use is msiexec.exe /q ALLUSERS=2 /m MSIHPSJR /i "AcroRead.msi" TRANSFORMS=mytransform.mst
if you run a standard install on a machine the msi package is extracted to the install folder in program files, use the transform creator provided by Adobe to create your own transform file, put the transform file in the same folder as the msi file, then create your package. i create a new program within the package and use the command line as above.
hope that all makes sense.
Tony
- Marked As Answer byEric C. MattoonMSFT, ModeratorTuesday, December 23, 2008 11:22 PM
Guys, why almost all of you use the transform file?
After installing Reader 9 on a test machine, I copy the "Setup Files" folder the installation directory. There are 5 files in that folder including .Acroread.msi file.
Then I'm creating the package and the program has the following command line: "acroread.msi /quiet /promptrestart" and I'm importing the msi package too.
And it works very well, with no user interaction and it prompts for a restart if necessary.
What is the difference/advantages of using the transform file?
Hi
the transform file allows you to do changes when applying the msi instead of making direct changes to it.
This means that your msi is always the original one (allows updates and upgrades since code is not changed).
You could potentially use different mst files with the same msi file and different settings then target them to different sets of users.
Since you have tools that generate the mst automatically based on your choices, this becomes much easier to follow than some reg settings that you would import afterwards. The Documentation of the changes is also easy as they appear
as changed in the tools like Adminstudio.
For adobe acrobat in general, the Customization wizard allows you to define a lot of settings without having to deal with files or the registry. As far as I know, the only good reasons not to use it are if you have very specific settings that cannot be set via the interface, or the simple fact that is becomes available several weeks if not months after the release of the product itself.
Hope it helps
brpo wrote: This means that your msi is always the original one (allows updates and upgrades since code is not changed).
This sounds interestingly. I will read more about this “feature” as it will really help me.
I don’t think I need other features you mentioned as everybody use default Adobe Readers’ settings.
Thanks Brpo!
Just one last note, if you use Sccm, it probably means that your users are not local administrators of their computers (this is at least recommended in most enterprises). One setting particularly annoying in this case with Adobe is the automatic updates. You won't see that happen at first, as it is by default set to every month. You should disable the updates if you need control on the version and patches that you use, as well as if your users don't have the rights on their computer to install those updates.
brgds
- http://www.appdeploy.com/packages/detail.asp?id=1303
that will tell ya what you want. - Hi Lokesh.
I too need to install Adobe Reader to all of my clients. My 1st question is did you start off by contacting adobe throught this link http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/distribute.html
Any suggestions or ideas that you may have please let me know.
Dustin - Is it possible that you could configure the Adobe package to uninstall previous versions of Adobe Reader? If I send out a package to install Adobe 8.1, and they have previous version, will they keep the previous as well as the new version?
Dustin,
Check out this link it is by far the best step by step instructions on getting Adobe Reader install even with all the incremental updates that Adobe Reader have.
http://www.vatofknow.com/archives/249
Robert
