Adobe X MSI installer file

I see Adobe released a new version of Reader, Adobe X which confused me because I was expecting a 10 there.  I don’t use a MAC often so I’m not used to seeing Roman numerals representing numbers.  Anyway…so you want to install the latest bloatware offering of Adobe Reader 10 eh?  Here’s how!

Download Adobe X from Adobe’s website and let the automatic installer help you because you’re clearly incapbable of installing a program yourself.  I didn’t want to take the time and figure out how to get the download without the excellent help of Adobe.  By the way, one annoying point is the download manager plugin for Firefox, they want you to restart your browser like all Firefox plugings – that’s just annoying Adobe come on!!!

* Let me know where the Windows 7 Directory is, it must be different seeing they use a c:\users folder

Once Adobe so graciously helped you by installing their application migrate here:

%ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Application Data\NOS\Adobe_Downloads or to the layman C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\NOS\Adobe_Downloads

Update: It looks like in my install of Adobe Reader 10.1 they put the installer files here:

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Adobe\Setup\{insert an app SID here}
%ALLUSERSPROFILE%\All Users\Application Data\Adobe\Setup\{insert an app SID here}

Copy the contents to a temp directory and use 7-zip to extract it / unpack it or whatever you’ve got that will extract the AdbeRdr1000_en_US.exe file.  I also tried this historical command but it didn’t work out quite like I expected.

AdbeRdr1000_en_US.exe -nos_ne -nos_o “Reader” <– It prompts you for a location to extract instead of just doing it.

* The above doesn’t really seem to work well, download 7-zip and extract the exe with that :p

Download the Adobe x customization wizard:  Link here <– Updated because the link in the forum below doesn’t work anymore!

* Reference for download here:  Adobe X Customization Wizard

* Reference II:  Adobe X Blog

* Lastly, you can find all kinds of interesting Adobe downloads here:  ftp://ftp.adobe.com/pub/adobe

Open the customization wizard, point it at your AcroRead.msi (file > open > AcroRead.msi) and modify to suite.

When done click “Transform” > “Generate Transform” > Save the file as “AcroRead.mst”

File exit – do not save changes to your MSI, I’ve personally had bad luck with that method :P

Here’s a link to my AcroRead.mst file, no license confirmation, no bells and whistles, and securely locked down.

To install use a group policy pointing at your MSI and your .mst transform or use a batch file command like:  msiexec /i AcroRead.msi TRANSFORMS=AcroRead.mst /quiet

Let us know how it works out for you :)

* Oh one more note:

Should you find yourself with the McAfee crapware on your PC you can uninstall it with this command:  C:\Program Files\McAfee Security Scan>uninstall /S /NCRC

* Helping reference for the NullSoft command was –> Here