Acrobat XI Pro Install via CCP Packager for Enterprise unuseable - tips for the unitiated

[simplearc]

Well, after at least six weeks of trying to script and package Acrobat XI via the CCP packager for enterprise (Windows 7 X64) I have learnt many home truths which I thought I would share with the unitiated. This process, from the point of view of an IT admin who has to mass deploy this application to 680 PC's as part of an updated SOE has been the most painful scripting process I have ever found of any package (we successfully deploy Office, and Autodesk apps!). Not only that, but our entire State technical colleges have all purchased the same version. This will be affecting IT staff across a huge area, perhaps worldwide. Below are some some facts relating to this that I will share so others do not have to trawl the minefiled of dead-ends and confusion that is Adobe forums/official documentation. Apologies for not finding direct links to all of the below just yet but I've run out of time as we now have MANUALLY install Acrobat XI on all of these machines. When I get time I will post some of the links:

Facts:

• Acrobat XI and Lightroom are NOT "CC" packages. Therefore they rely on a spearate serial numbers to install standalone without another major Adobe product (eg Photoshop) to be installed and then run first. Otherwise they will run in trial mode. If your organistaion is wanting to install these products I highly recommend seeing if Adobe can provide you with these.
• Without the use of serial number for Acrobat XI this almost renders the Customisation Wizard effectively useless, none of the silent install switch will work with "Offline Exception"
• Yes, one Adobe employee notes that you must install a major package before Acrobat but as the aoplogies for not fixing this were posted last August, we are still in the quandry of not having any useable fix except for the ridiculous "Exceptions" file and Exceptions installer.
• If you run the Build and/or execeptions msi's it installs Acrobat twice, gold Adobe, gold.
• http://forums.adobe.com/message/6039529#6039529 - look at this for a working script for Photoshop etc, it's great.Thanks to http://forums.adobe.com/people/PetriRiihikallio for posting this. However, alas, it cannot silently install Acrobat correctly (thus far).
• It appears that the msi builder for CCP for enterprise is fatally flawed. I have never had as much problem with installing msi's -  ever. For example, I have had to re-package the msi multiples times and many times simply running the msi will fail.
• The idea that all major installs have to install the 32 bit version AND the 64 bit version is riduclous, enough said.
• http://blogs.adobe.com/acrolaw/2013/02/acrobat-xi-deployment-guide-for-large-firms/ this guide may be useful for people who have been given a separate serial number.
• http://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/kb/known-issues-acrobat-xi-reader.html another useful link

I think for the time being I have now wasted enough time trying to tear my hair out with this. I will be waiting for Adobe to announce Acrobat and Lightroom CC. this will enable the correct deployment of a single app without having the bloat my SOE with unnecessary applications that most staff rarely use. Ahhh, I love a good manual install via VNC/RDP, don't you?

[waltpenner]

Thanks. I thought i was crazy until I ran across this post.

Exceptions installer is kinda of wonky when all we really want is an msi and mst .

[simplearc]

Hi Waltpenner and others, yes it can be very confusing and writing script after script got me even more confused.

Now, the story continues, after 6+ hours on the phone with Adobe Support...

• When you install Adobe Acrobat XI it asks you to install the C++ Redistributable package and this is where the msi will STOP INSTALLING. even though the MSI says "complete"
• Now you think to yourself, OK, I'll write a script to install this msi package no problems, solved.
• Nope, the msi for Acrobat Pro XI will Still Halt even if you write this into the script along with halt no err or something similar in your code.
• So what do you do?
• When you create your msi in Cloud Packager, even though this feels completely against your better judgement tick the box under conflicting Process entitled "Ignore Conflicts and Continue installations" This will (finally) allow you to run the msi. Please see the wonderful deployment script above, which you may still need to edit to your needs (I did) - which I post once it's working perfectly.
• You could then install the C++ redist from Microsoft at a later date ----> On that note however (thanks Microsoft for this gem) the Visual C++ redist is an msi for download, but it's actually a zip file calling an exe inside it. I suggest using the App Deploy Repackager  to help you change registry entries if you need to install this, but choose your favourite tool (and no I'm not talking about that work colleague you don't like
• Note: You will need to install this for certain features of Acro Pro XI to function, most of which relates to sever functions of Acrobat. I will post the exact reasons when I find them. Under pressure to get this deployed, I have not deployed this pckage as yet. Also, I'm unsure how Visual C++ will affect other major apps across my enterprise just yet.

Things to still consider

• Acrobat still installs twice in the program directory (1.7GB nd 1.8GB respectively)
• As all of the other CC packages are quite easy to install, Adobe needs to provide better service to it's enterprise customers by creating a proper version of Acrobat and Lightroom which is Acrobat CC and Lightroom CC, not version numbers tacked onto their new Cloud Service.
• As for the above point I would still recommend creating the smallest msi packages you can, as large msi's that install a number of Apps (eg all of the web/image editing apps) take forever and quite often exhibit install errors
• The amount of time I've spent on this is ridiculous, and we've had to package everything from Office to Autocad.
• The amount of bandwidth I've chewed up is excessive, with package re-creation (download) of all the products probably about 100GB - however the ability to edit these packages with updates with the CCP is a good step forward.
• Using the CCP through a proxy is horrendous, and complicated with the amount of exception through the servers you have to prvide (even then it rarely works).
• The MSI packager still needs quite alot of work. As Petri states why he had to write a script like this when Adobe could have done the same thing is beyond him.
• Adobe needs to trawl it's forum posts and take out the many false leads and dead ends provided by it's experts.

When I Think of anything else, or wite more scipts I'll let you all know.

Cheers,

[SachinPorwal]

Hi simplearc,

We have a clear and well documented workflow for the problem that you have encountered. We would recommend to please follow the Creative Cloud Packager help guide "http://helpx.adobe.com/creative-cloud/packager.html".

When a CCP package is created, Acrobat and LightRoom goes to Exception folder, Exception Deployer utility will be helpful to deploy such payloads, please note that the package MSI need always be deployed on target system. The help guide also have specific sections for Acrobat "http://helpx.adobe.com/creative-cloud/packager/deploying-acrobat.html", you may like to follow it on some test system. If you still see any issues, please share the newly generated MSI logs & PDApp.log from user temp folder.

Thanks,

Sachin

[simplearc]

... I'm sorry Sachin but this help file is not comprehensive at all. While helpful in some ways there are many aspects of this document which fall short. There are many other issues that users have encountered. Also the fact that it took tech support almost six hours remoted inot a bare bones machine to help with a solution shows that the processes are not well documented in Adobe's own technical documents.

However I do appreciate the time that my tech support guy form Adobe took to help me onthis issue.

Cheers

[ShawnF5]

Thanks simplearc for posting this. Those of us who are having issues appreciate it.

I am using creative cloud for teams and am experiencing the same issues.

I'm trying to install Acrobat CC on 20 machines.

I create an Acrobat Creative Cloud package with the Creative Cloud Packager.

It downloads Acrobat and creates the package.

I run the Exceptions deployer with the command:

"ExceptionDeployer.exe --workflow=install --mode=pre --installLanguage=en_US"

Acrobat installs successfully but guess what, it doesn't work, saying that, "Adobe Application Manager, required to verify your license, is missing or damaged."

So i then run the Acrobat.msi file from the Build folder with this command:

msiexec /i "Acrobat.msi" /Lime cclog.txt

The log file ends with this line:

Action start 12:01:37: InstallFinalize.

I dont see any Creative Cloud and and there are stil 3 msiexec's waiting in the task manager.

I eventually have to just end task on two of them and automagically windows explorer restarts and i see creative cloud.

I see two Adobe Acrobat XI Pro's in the Control Panel, which is idiodic that Adobe would be ok with this.

I'm going to try some of things that you have suggested.

Thanks,

Shawn

[simplearc]

Hi Shawn, yes it's quite frustrating. You may also need to consider a couple of other things as well that may be hindering the instllation of the msi:

• When we have run our script "manually" through VNC (there are manual steps but the script ultimately runs at the end) many times it halts due to background services from Apple, such a ituneshelper.exe. You may want to look at this so your process can continue.
• You most certainly need to run this as an admin, the best success I've had is runas with the local admin account (not domain admin)
• The running (or "looping") msi's as I like to call them may be blocked by the issue with Visual C++ Redist. Perhaps try and run your install manually to see if this warning popup comes through.

If I think of anything else I'll let you know.

...and not a problem

[ShawnF5]

Hi simplearc,

I was able to get the install working.

As it turns out I think that I wasn't waiting long enough for the Creative Cloud program to install.

It takes about 10 minutes for that tiny program to install when the Acrobat install took less than a minute.

It must download something in the background which is a bummer because than what is the point of the CC packager?

When the install of both Acrobat and Creative Cloud are complete Acrobat errors with a missing dll.

Thats where your suggestion for Visual C++ Redist comes into play. I run that and the error goes away.

So my final script that seems to work is this:

setup.exe

"ExceptionDeployer.exe" --workflow=install --mode=pre --installLanguage=en_US

"vcredist_x86.exe" /install /quiet /norestart

In the end I end up with 2 entries of "Adobe Acrobat XI Pro" in Programs and Features but it works so i'll have to live with that.

Thanks,

Shawn

[PetriRiihikallio]

So my final script that seems to work is this:

setup.exe

"ExceptionDeployer.exe" --workflow=install --mode=pre --installLanguage=en_US

"vcredist_x86.exe" /install /quiet /norestart

I believe you should run these in the reverse order: first the VC++Redistributable as it is a prerequisite for Acrobat, then the exception deployer in pre-mode and lastly the setup in the Build directory. (You should also rerun the exception deployer in post-mode after that. IIRC it installs some files for simple Acrobat installs as well.)

I don't have any testing environment at hand now. I just happened to check this forum after a long absence.

[AndrewParry@LJMU]

Great article..so are you saying then the order should be

C++ redistributable [2010] - http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/confirmation.aspx?id=5555

Exception Deployer pre

MSI

Exception Deployer post

So:

vcredist_x86.exe /install /quiet /norestart

ExceptionDeployer.exe  --workflow=install --mode=pre --installLanguage=en_US

msiexec /i Build\AcrobatxPro.msi /L* C:\temp\INSTALL-Acrobat-Pro-XI.log

ExceptionDeployer.exe  --workflow=install --mode=post

What is interesting is if you look at the specified requirements for Acrobat Pro

https://creative.adobe.com/products/acrobat

It doesnt mention C++ at all ...

Also the ExceptionDeployer tool generates a text file containing instructions, which is helpful, except for the first link in it which is a dead link 🙂

http://www.adobe.com/uk/go/ccp_exceptions_deployer

Best wishes,

Andy

[PetriRiihikallio]

The VC++ Redist is listed in some prerequisite doc. I don't install it myself, because it is included in our base Windows installation. My job is to cater for the Adobe installs (a headache in itself). Can't help you there.

Yes, you have the correct order, but you don't install Acrobat using MSIExec. The ExceptionDeployer installs Acrobat in the pre-pass. If you are only installing Acrobat, you won't need the Build directory at all (AFAIK). Just run ExceptionDeployer twice: first in pre mode and then in post mode. The post mode will install help and some other stuff (IIRC).

You can use my script at http://forums.adobe.com/message/6039529 It doesn't hurt to run MSIExec in Build for an Acrobat only installation. That's how we use it continuously.

My current headache with the script is that nowadays Acrobat, Muse and LightRoom need to be activated with adobe_prtk to suppress registration and eula. I just looked at it last week, but can't really work on it before next week. This week is too busy. I'll update my script when I am done. Oh, why can't Adobe just create an installer for us?

[AndrewParry@LJMU]

Hi ,

Do you have a link to the reference aricle for this prereq ?

So if your installing Acrobat on its own you just need to run an exception deployer pre to install it and then run it post again. Without an MSI line inbetween? Again do you have a reference article for this?

What I wrote is working post build via SCCM and also as an install on demand but it isnt working during our build phase.

We have all other packages working post build via SCCM and in our build...including Muse and Lightroom...I found an article which discusses the adobe_prtk.exe and using it to remove the EULA information and the sign in stuff.  Here it is

Creative Cloud Help | Installing products in the Exceptions folder

So we have a script for all packages that

Runs Pre exceptiondeployer

runs MSI

runs Post exceptiondeployer

and then runs the following commands:

adobe_prtk.exe --tool=EULA --leid=V7{}Muse-80-Win-GM --eulasuppress
adobe_prtk.exe --tool=EULA --leid=V7{}Lightroom-55-Win-GM --eulasuppress

adobe_prtk.exe --tool=Register --leid=V7{}Muse-80-Win-GM --regsuppress=ss
adobe_prtk.exe --tool=Register --leid=V7{}Lightroom-55-Win-GM --regsuppress=ss

Hope this helps,

Andy

[damienhealy]

New to this so please be gentle....I need to install this package through an imaging bundle for numerous labs on campus.

So, now to install the full Adobe suite, incl Ac Lr Ps Ms etc, I need to use the CCP to create a custom build.

Then use Customization wizard to 'license' Ac Lr Ms,

Then I need to run an Exception Pre bundle ensuring Ac is installed first

Then I need to run the custom build I require

Then I need to run an Exception Post bundle ensuring Ac is installed again

Then I need to run the Adobe Provisioning Toolkit to 'license' Ms Lr

And this is the 'simple' way?  Who the hell is running the show here, that's a joke

[PetriRiihikallio]

Welcome to the club!

Yes, it looks like you are picking up fast the code of conduct

[ShawnF5]

I don't pretend to be an expert on Adobe product deployment, but I think that a lot of these issues wouldn't have occurred if Adobe would have just gotten Acrobat fully supported by the Creative Cloud Packager before going full steam into Creative Cloud. On another note, this is a great article, even after 6 months. Going to help a lot of people with deployment issues.

[PetriRiihikallio]

Do you have a link to the reference aricle for this prereq ?

No. As I wrote earlier, our Windows base installation includes the VC++Redist. I wasn't even aware that Acrobat required it before I read about simplearc's experiences. He notes (@Apr 1, 2014 7:46 PM above) that VC++Rredist is only required for "certain functions" that are server related. My script doesn't include it.

So if your installing Acrobat on its own you just need to run an exception deployer pre to install it and then run it post again. Without an MSI line inbetween? Again do you have a reference article for this?

No, again. Just personal experience. Adobe instructs to run XDA in pre-mode, then the install the build and run XDA in post-mode again. If you are only installing Acrobat, installing the build doesn't seem to do anything, but YMMV. It doesn't hurt either.

[PetriRiihikallio]

This seems to be the best forum to share experiences with CCP.

Are you guys familiar with this: Creative Cloud Help | Installing products in the Exceptions folder

The doc is not dated nor does it refer to any exact version number. The way I read it is that you are supposed to install Muse and Lightroom using MSIExec and not XDA (the Exceptions Deployer), see section "If you are installing Adobe Muse or Adobe Lightroom". However, in my experience MSIExec won't install those MSIs because they are in wrong format. The XDA will install them happily and they seem to work fine. Is it just me or how are you installing them? There is no reasoning for this instruction.

I am still working on updating my script to the new "enhancements" to the installation process... Don't hold your breaths!

[damienhealy]

Petr, did you manage to design a script in the end?

[PetriRiihikallio]

I have now published my updated script at Re: Automating installation of CCP packages for Windows

Please click Like or rate the post so the Search will promote it for others to find.

[xcvergxfg]

Hi all.

This is pretty ugly but really, not as ugly as an unimportant application like QuickTime or iTunes.

Anyway, I seem to have this working after creating a build only containing Acrobat XI Pro using Creative Cloud Packager, the serial number for licensing seems to work because on launch it's not giving me an option to register, instead there's a "Deactivate..." option (which is grayed out).

What I've had to do is:

1. ExceptionDeployer --workflow=install --mode=pre --installLanguage=en_US
2. Run the setup.exe

Running only the pre mode installs Acrobat Pro however I get the message on launch:

"Adobe Application Manager, required to verify your license, is missing or damaged."

Same thing happens when I run pre and post mode, first launch behaviour is exactly the same.

My only requirement now is to make sure I can disable the AcroTray on startup and delete the Acrobat and FormsCentral icons on desktop.

Edit: I still refuse to finalise this deployment because I can't seem to apply my Adobe Customization Wizard deployment, will continue to search and work on it.

Edit #2: Ignore what I said. I just used this guide and it seems to work. I had to create a small post install script to disable the Adobe auto updater that gets created for startup which isn't configurable in the Customization wizard.

Creative Cloud Help | Deploying Adobe Acrobat

[xcvergxfg]

This is doing my head in. I am trying to supersede Acrobat X Standard and Pro using my new XI Professional deployment. Tested on 1 VM repeatedly, both if the VM had Acrobat Standard and Pro, works good. Tested on a physical prod box, works fine. I deploy to 210 computers, mix of Standard and Pro, it works only half the time. I remote in to one PC and disable acrotray.exe, deploys OK. Sometimes it actually installed, but SCCM client detection method fails initially. When refresh happens, it comes good and finally detects detection method. ARGGGHH!!!!

[Kamofy01]

Simplearc, I just want to clarify that Acrobat does not install twice on your system even though it is listed twice in Programs and Features. If it being listed twice bothers you, as it did me, all you need to do is delete the reg key from the following hive:

reg delete "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\{23D3F585-AE29-4670-8E3E-64A0EFB29240}" /f /reg:32

For some reason Adobe makes two entries in the registry. One in the 64-bit and the other in 32-bit. Deleting the 32-bit key gets rid of the duplicate listing and does not effect the functionality of the app in any way from what I can tell.

[Ric5]

At the risk of being over-simplistic, wouldn't the Acrobat Customization Wizard work better for you folks? We're kind of forced into going that route because we have Acro Pro covered under a separate enterprise license (and a whole lot more of them purchased than CC licenses). It generates an mst file with licensing and configuration preferences, optinally surpressing EULA and registration requests, as well as configuring virtually every option the program has.

It still took me a good part of an afternoon to figure out how to build and deploy Lightroom updates. But that's a totally different story.

[mtarggart]

I've been working at this for several hours (going on seven) and if I am correct, the "ExceptionDeployer --workflow=install --mode=pre" command is the same as deploying the AcroPro.msi in the Exceptions/AcrobatProfessional11.0-mul folder. I tested this by manually installing each way and both have the same end result. The difference is that you can then use the Adobe Customization Wizard XI to customize the AcroPro.msi file to create a Transform. The .msi file in the Build folder still needs to be ran afterwards in order to license the application. If you are only deploying Acrobat Pro, there is no need to run the "ExceptionDeployer --workflow=install --mode=post" command. In fact, when I manually installed Acrobat using the ExceptionDeployer method, I tried to run it again using the --mode=post switch. It started and stopped almost immediately with a return code of 0. So I'm not sure if it is even needed at all or if it is like mentioned above and is supposedly merely another way to install the .msi created from CCP.

When deploying Acrobat X with CS6, it was the same way; deploy the AcroPro.msi file first, then the customized.msi file created with AMMEE.

I do agree with everyone else with Adobe needing to make it easier to deploy this. I'm not sure who thought coming up with a different way was a better way to go. It was already too complicated as it is. I'll update this post should anything change with this method. We've got CS6 installed on over 10,000 computers, so figuring out the best way to remove that and install CC is the next hurdle.

[Marist-Sion College]

Hi,

We're seeing 1603 errors when installing the main suite, has anyone seen and got a solution to this. Sound like CC is a real nightmare to deploy.

Ben