I have a question about AAMEE (Adobe Application Manager Enterprise Edition) - the app that bundles up the Adobe installs into native .pkg format installers. I have a case open with Adobe's support, but I'm going on a 3rd week of "support" without learning anything aside from a case#. I'm hoping there are some people here who are doing what I'm trying to do.
What am I trying to do? My goal is to create installers for functional groups of applications using our volume Master Collection CS5 media and AAMEE. They could then be available for use with self service. Eg. Print_Design/Video/Flash could all be groups of apps (or even individual apps) that could be installed/uninstalled as necessary using self service or other policies. That way we only install what is necessary and can easily add and remove them as user/computer roles change.
My test has been this. Create 2 installers for common configurations.
Base - Illustrator, Indesign, Photoshop, Bridge (everything else is unchecked)
After Effects - After Effects and supporting apps (such as media encoder)
My challenge has been that the installers that AAMEE creates install additional components that I don't have granular control of. For example with the "base" install, I can create an AAMEE pkg, and I get working Illustrator, Indesign, Photoshop and Bridge apps - that's great! But I also get broken apps and empty folders for many other components (After Effects, Encore, OnLocation, Premier, etc). The picture shows it well http://bit.ly/gn3ncW
That causes problems when an uninstall happens. If I were to install the "Base" then install After effects, things work fine. However, unstalling the "base" using the uninstaller also uninstalls after effects even though it wasn't checked in any way when creating the "base" install pkg. It's also just plain messy having broken apps and empty folders for apps that were never installed. I don't want to go around cleaning up the mess.
Is anyone else using AAMEE successfully to install Creative suite apps in this way? I would love if I could make a number of individual and application group installs available via self service. If you're doing something similar but in a different way, I would love to hear about it.
Thanks!
Aaron Robinson
