If you’re patching your Adobe Reader here’s a few things that might help you out!
First, I recently learned (thanks to errors I got while patching a package) that Adobe has two types of packages. They have a “Security Update” and a “Quarterly Update”. You can patch quarterly updates with security updates but you can’t patch security updates with quarterly updates.
Learn more about it here (versions 8 & 9): —> Link
Learn more about it here (version 10): –> Link
Here’s a brief table Adobe gives for the process:
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Acceptable: Acrobat 9.0.0 (Original Product) -> 9.1.0 (Quarterly) -> 9.1.1 (Security)
Acceptable: Acrobat 9.0.0 (Original Product) -> 9.1.0 (Quarterly) -> 9.1.2 (Quarterly)
Unacceptable: Acrobat 9.0.0 (Original Product) -> 9.1.0 (Quarterly) -> 9.1.1 (Security) -> 9.1.2 (Quarterly)
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Second, if you’re going to distribute Adobe Reader on your network or website one of the easiest ways to get a clean copy without Adobe Air or Adobe.com packaged into it is to sign up for a license (it’s free). —> Link
Once you sign up and get approved they email you a license with helpful links to all kinds of stuff including your own link to a clean package.
If you have an old package from 9.0.0, 9.1.0, 9.1.3, etc like I did you probably have an MST file which will transform the package and properly tweak your settings for your environment. You can create your own custom package with the Adobe Reader Customization Wizard: —> Link
The third and last thing to note is the extraction process of the exe you get from adobe and some setting changes you’ll might have to make in your setup.ini file. This is what tripped me up. No matter how many times I told Adobe to use my transform (.mst) it wouldn’t take any of my settings. So check your settings.ini if you’re having problems, and if you follow the steps below you might not have to do that, I tested it out!
Referring to the Adobe Deployment Guide this is what we need to do from start to finish!
- Download your exe from Adobe
- Download the customization wizard and make your mst transform or use mine: Link
- Extract your Adobe 9.2 files, puts them in the same folder: <path to>\AdbeRdr920_en_US.exe -nos_ne -nos_o”Reader9″
- Copy the MST you made into the folder “Reader9”, that contains your Adobe Reader 9.2.0 source files.
- Install Adobe 9.2.0: msiexec /i AcroRead.msi TRANSFORMS=AcroRead.mst
- OR Install silently: msiexec /i AcroRead.msi TRANSFORMS=AcroRead.mst /quiet
DONE! If you happen to have problems of any kind don’t use my MST, try creating your own. Perhaps my settings aren’t meshing well in your environment. The MST I made does not enable JavaScript, disables other big things like Adobe.com and any license agreements (or should).
Also note that you can also push this out via an Active Directory Group Policy and that there are a lot of ways to slice how you do that.
In brief: Open “Active Directory Users and Computers” > Right click your desired OU (Usually has computer objects in it) > “Create and Link a GPO here” > Name your GPO > Right click your GPO > Edit > Computer Configuration > Software Settings > Right click “Software Installation” > New > package > Find your “AcroRead.msi” and hopefully you put it in a network share that’s reachable by your computers > Advanced > OK > Modification Tab > Add > Select your “AcroRead.mst” file > Open > OK
Lastly – my MST does not have any warranty (but it should work)
Lastly lastly – if you’re using an MSP to update instead of an MSI here’s the cod ;) : msiexec /update AdbeRdrUpd1013.msp /quiet
* You can get the patches from the links I put in way in the beginning for your version – the section with the word “Link” to the update paths.