Remove all adobe CS/CC products

[ImAMacGuy]

We're getting ready to roll out Adobe CC, but we are finding a lot of machines have multiple versions of Creative Suite installed. On the PC side, we take the installers and wrap them up with some additional code that goes and looks for the other products and removes them, but we don't have anything like that in place on the Mac.

Has anybody come up with a workflow they can share? I saw this thread https://jamfnation.jamfsoftware.com/discussion.html?id=27, but there's a lot of manual steps involved, where I was looking for something that can be either a SS or all bundled into one process, since we're going to need to hit a few hundred machines.

[Chris]

https://helpx.adobe.com/creative-suite/kb/cs5-cleaner-tool-installation-problems.html#enterprise

You can configure it to either remove all applications or supply an XML with specified apps

[donmontalvo]

Adobe gold support once told us the best way to get rid of old versions of Adobe Creative Suite is to reimage the Mac. All jokes aside, that's what we did. Works great.

[dpertschi]

I've had little to no luck using adobe uninstallers or other available scripts for this.

Honestly, the day I get tasked with removal of old versions (we have many as well), I'm simply going to write a script to remove the unwanted application folders. I don't care if some scraps are left behind; the app is gone and no longer reporting in machine inventory.

[dgreening]

I've had some issues with CC failing to install when CS6 is installed (Contact manufacturer error). If I nuke the CS6 applications, all Adobe items in /Library/Application Support/, all Adobe items in /Library/Preferences/, all Adobe items in /User/userid/Library/Application Support/, all adobe items in /User/userid/Library/Preferences/ that typically does the trick in terms of CC being able to successfully install. Adobe support was a whole lot of no help when it came to the error. YMMV...

[donmontalvo]

@dpertschi, @dgreening that was kind of my point. Adobe Gold support are usually clueless when it comes to enterprise needs. The "reimage" advice was the best we ever got.

[taugust04]

I've built some of my own uninstaller scripts based on doing snapshots CS6/CC/CC2014 in Composer. However I don't touch anything in the User home directories. They've worked pretty well for me especially since their AAMEE uninstaller packages tend to leave "cruff" behind, and only work on uninstalling what was installed with the corresponding AAMEE installer package it was generated with. It's not as simple as blowing away Adobe applications in the Applications folder and /Library/Application Support/Adobe, since non CS6/CC/CC2014 files live in some of those areas that you don't want to delete. Good luck!

~Ted

[ahambidge]

I second @donmontalvo's advice on reimaging. Adobe Support, in my experience, is useful insomuch as answering the phone call, but not the problem that generated the call. As @taugust04 & @dgreening mentioned, there's a whole lot of cruft left in various places on the system, depending on the host OS and the version of Adobe product being installed, and trying to account for all of those variations is either a great thought exercise or simply maddening. :)

I usually try to time our CC upgrades with OS X upgrades, so the users get a fresh image and the new CC product(s). So far it's worked well.

[ImAMacGuy]

@taugust04 would you be willing to post your scripts?

[RobertHammen]

I've written scripts to remove stuff from various folders in /Library, /Applications, and /Applications/Utilities. Not worried about end-user prefs. Depending on the environment, we may not bring over much from the users' home directory.

Also try to do a reimage/new OS upgrade with CC upgrade at the same time (current client going from 10.8.5/CS 5.5 to 10.10.2/CC 2014). Chance to clean up 2+ years of cruft...

[bentoms]

Another reimager here, having been bitten trying to uninstall CS 1-5 then & install newer have lead to too many scars & grey hairs.. So now we reimage whenever changing the suite or updating to newer.

Not the surgical approach, but works & around 70% of our imaging time is Adobe alone.. It is quicker.