Disabling updates on OS X using /L/P/com.adobe.<product>.plist

[timothy-sutton]

Having read in the Acrobat Deployment Guide that as of Acrobat 10.1.1, there's support for placing a FeatureLockdown-like key in a plist in /Library/Preferences. This is detailed on page 142-143:

http://helpx.adobe.com/content/dam/kb/en/837/cpsid_83709/attachments/Acrobat_Enterprise_Administrati...

I'm specifically concentrating on Acrobat Pro X (10.1.1) in this case, and am testing on Snow Leopard 10.6.8. I've placed a plist at that path:

sh-3.2# defaults read /Library/Preferences/com.adobe.Acrobat.Pro      

{

    10 =     {

        FeatureLockdown =         {

            bUpdater = 0;

        };

    };

}

Or, if you want the full XML plist contents:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">

<plist version="1.0">

<dict>

    <key>10</key>

    <dict>

        <key>FeatureLockdown</key>

        <dict>

                  <key>bUpdater</key>

                  <false/>

        </dict>

    </dict>

</dict>

</plist>

It doesn't seem to take effect. I've tried restarting, logging in and out the user, convert to and from XML to binary plist format, nothing. I notice that Acrobat Pro X's updater plugin also knows something about a plist at /etc/defaults/AdobeARMOverrides.plist. Is this of any use?

Also, the proposed workaround at 15.6.3 is wrong:

"15.6.3  Preventing any updates

To disable the application’s ability to update altogether, use a post install script to move, rename, or

delete the Updater.acroplugin file from the <root>/Contents/Plug-ins/Updater.acropluginplug_ins

directory."

This should read "<root>/Contents/Built-in/Updater.acroplugin". I'm quite able to resort to this method instead, but I'd rather use the plist method so I don't need to remove the Updater with every minor update.

[EnterpriseHelp]

Investigating. Stay tuned.

Ben

[EnterpriseHelp]

Thank you for the detailed post.

1. Under investigation
2. You are correct and will integrate that change.

Thanks,

Ben

[EnterpriseHelp]

1. Verify Class of bUpdater is Boolean. Use plist editor (like PlistEdit pro etc) to check.
2. The permissions of this file should be – 755.
   
3. Verify you're using Acrobat to 10.1.1 or above. It will not work on below versions.

hth

Ben

[timothy-sutton]

Sorry for the delay, was on vacation.

As is shown in my example, bUpdater is boolean. When else can you have "<false/>" as a key value? I've just verified in Xcode that it is in fact boolean.

The permissions were previously 644, owned by the 501 admin user. I've changed this to root:admin mode 755. No change.

I'm using Acrobat 10.1.1 on Snow Leopard Server.

On the subject of docs, they don't indicate anything about ownership/permissions, and are actually unclear about the contents of the file. It says to create a new "file" ending in .plist, and then to add the "entries" of the dict, without showing an example of the <plist> tag and the DTD. The next section (setting the Updater to manual) also states path "~/User/Library/Preferences/", which has ambiguous context and is also _not a real directory_.

Thanks,

-Tim

[timothy-sutton]

I've just tested this with the latest 10.1.4 update. The Updater section of the preferences is now not visible, so it looks like it works properly. Thanks for investigating!