Adobe Reader 9 deployment - Deleting the Older Versions

[#1]

Hi,

We need to deploy Adobe Reader 9 to all our machines. Requirement is "Policy
should delete older versions of the Adobe Reader before installing the new
version".We are packaging Adobe Reader 9 using Composer. There are multiple
versions of Adobe Reader in our environments.

Kindly suggest me the best way to delete the old versions of Adobe Reader
before installing the new version.

Thanks & Regards,
Manoj

[donmontalvo]

Hi Karthikeyan,
Karthikeyan Marappan <karthikeyan.mac at gmail.com> wrote:

This should cover 6 and 7 (preinstall script to remove):

http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/329/329129.html

I don't see anything for 8, but I can't imagine it being harder than removing the application, internet plugins and office plugins.

Don

[#3]

If you have packages for the previous installs, use those to perform an uninstall with Casper.

Otherwise, I'd have a shell script that would either remove files or activate the Adobe uninstaller to remove Reader.

Regards,


[karthikeyan_mac]

Hi,

Thanks Sean.

Many version does not have Adobe Uninstaller to uninstall it.

Regards,
Karthikeyan M

[donmontalvo]

Hi Karthikeyan,
Karthikeyan Marappan <karthikeyan.mac at gmail.com> wrote:

Wildcards can help:

rm -Rf /Applications/Adobe Reader* rm -Rf /Library/Internet Plug-Ins/AdobePDF* rm -Rf /Applications/Microsoft Office 200/Office/Startup/Word/pdfmaker.dot rm -Rf /Applications/Microsoft Office 200/Office/Startup/Excel/pdfmaker.xla rm -Rf /Applications/Microsoft Office 200*/Office/Startup/PowerPoint/pdfmaker.ppa

...can also repeat the above using "~/" to get user directory stuff, although a decision would need to be made if users who did install into ~ should call in for help (in case any power users have a reason for needing older versions installed).

It's difficult to know where things will be in an environment where users all have admin rights (usually the result of techs who don't understand how to manage things and decide to give users a BFH), so users are able to rename, relocate, etc., their Adobe Reader installs.

I would shoot for the default locations (above), and include the internet and Microsoft Office Plug-Ins. You can also snapshot the Adobe Reader 7 and 8 installers (full) on a fresh system to get an idea of what gets installed. Of course test, test, test... :)

Don

[donmontalvo]

My apologies, if you want to snag the same stuff in each user's home directory, you may need to use "/Users/*/" (since the script won't understand "~").
On Mar 31, 2010, at 10:25 AM, Don Montalvo wrote:

Don