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<TITLE>Re: [Casper] Acrobat Pro</TITLE>
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<FONT FACE="Calibri, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:11pt'>Adobe’s applications have become more and more difficult to re-package. Acrobat in particular has been a pain because of its self-healing mechanism. “How do I disable Acrobat self-healing?” has probably been one of the more discussed questions on this list and others. Standard users can’t “repair” Acrobat and so they’re presented with an authentication dialog that is useless to them. Cancel it and Acrobat quits.<BR>
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Also, Adobe changed its serialization methods between CS2 and CS3. It moved from a flat file to a cache file. Anyone needing to install multiple versions of an application or applications from different versions have to essentially create a “common files” package, which can be shared between CS1 and CS2 but not with CS3. That requires its own “common files” package and learning a new way to re-package.<BR>
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Packaging all of this requires hours of installation and then time to take apart and create individual packages. Sometimes this works fine but sometimes things are broken, mostly Acrobat. It’s voodoo to get it to work properly. Then the troubleshooting has to begin. JAMF recognized the pain Adobe’s installers were causing and actually modified its own software to help its customers make installation easier.<BR>
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Even though Adobe hasn’t provided Apple Installer packages it has been providing scriptability with its own installers. This is what JAMF is using. You can specify the serial number, disable updates, disable registration and disable displaying the EULA by modifying just a few files. Learning how to do this is, IMHO, preferable to the packaging problems we’ve had in the past.<BR>
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Of course, the ideal solution is for Adobe to go with what is now standard and just create Apple packages.<BR>
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bill<BR>
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William M. Smith, Technical Analyst<BR>
MCS IT<BR>
Merrill Communications, LLC<BR>
(651) 632-1492<BR>
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On 12/8/08 12:47 PM, "Miles Leacy" <<a href="miles.leacy@themacadmin.com">miles.leacy@themacadmin.com</a>> wrote:<BR>
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</SPAN></FONT><BLOCKQUOTE><FONT FACE="Calibri, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:11pt'>Ok, I was under the impression that the reason /tmp couldn't be deployed to is because of the exclusion list in Composer. Perhaps I was mistaken or there is a bug.<BR>
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What I have done that works is to create a folder in /Library for such purposes.<BR>
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I typically name it /Library/NameOfCompany and populate it with any files or folders that I need to use for deployment or management.<BR>
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You should be able to deploy the installer to /Library/NameOfCompany/Adobe, and then call it with a script. However, I believe someone on this thread mentioned that this particular update won't take the -silent switch. Perhaps some UI scripting can get around this limitation?<BR>
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My next question is why do you have to deploy this Installer from Adobe? Why not take a Composer snapshot, run the update and package the changes (including undoing any Adobe "repairs" you don't like)?<BR>
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On Mon, Dec 8, 2008 at 1:14 PM, Nichols, Jared <<a href="jared.nichols@ll.mit.edu">jared.nichols@ll.mit.edu</a>> wrote:<BR>
</SPAN></FONT><BLOCKQUOTE><FONT FACE="Calibri, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:11pt'>My exclusion list is empty<BR>
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On 12/8/08 12:50 , "Miles Leacy" <<a href="miles.leacy@themacadmin.com">miles.leacy@themacadmin.com</a> <<a href="http://miles.leacy@themacadmin.com">http://miles.leacy@themacadmin.com</a>> > wrote:<BR>
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</SPAN></FONT><BLOCKQUOTE><FONT FACE="Calibri, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:11pt'>Did you remove /private/tmp from the exclusion list in Composer preferences *before* building your package?<BR>
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2008/12/8 Nichols, Jared <<a href="jared.nichols@ll.mit.edu">jared.nichols@ll.mit.edu</a> <<a href="http://jared.nichols@ll.mit.edu">http://jared.nichols@ll.mit.edu</a>> ><BR>
</SPAN></FONT><BLOCKQUOTE><FONT FACE="Calibri, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:11pt'>Is there a best-practice way to run these updates then? I just tried deploying to /tmp and I don't seem to see it anywhere in there.<BR>
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Hrm.<BR>
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On 12/8/08 12:28 , "Smith, William" <<a href="william.smith@merrillcorp.com">william.smith@merrillcorp.com</a> <<a href="http://william.smith@merrillcorp.com">http://william.smith@merrillcorp.com</a>> <<a href="http://william.smith@merrillcorp.com">http://william.smith@merrillcorp.com</a>> > wrote:<BR>
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</SPAN></FONT><BLOCKQUOTE><FONT FACE="Calibri, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:11pt'>The problem I've seen with Adobe's Acrobat 8.x updaters is that they are not scriptable like those for the other CS3 applications. Those .app updaters can be called with a –silent switch but not Acrobat's. :-(<BR>
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These Acrobat updaters also require that you select the Acrobat application to patch and also may ask you to "repair" the installation, which is Adobespeak for "let me put back my Safari and Office plugins and set myself to default again." These prompts must be manually dismissed.<BR>
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Also, JAMF may have a difficult time getting CS4 to work because the –silent update for those suites wants to connect to the Internet to download updates as part of the install process. In our environment our Macs must authenticate to our proxy (no free love access) and that just hangs the install.</SPAN></FONT></BLOCKQUOTE></BLOCKQUOTE></BLOCKQUOTE></BLOCKQUOTE></BLOCKQUOTE>
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