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Adobe Updates and Adobe Maintenance

  • February 9, 2011
  • 1 reply
  • 13 views
A
  • Anonymous

Hello Again Everyone,

As you might expect, we are moving quickly into more managed desktops with both SCCM for Windows and something else for the Mac, we simply haven't ruled out anything at this point. It occurred to me today that patch management and updates may not be trivial when it comes to Adobe products. They seem to have their installers and such. With Apple's Software Update Server, we have some standards to follow for deployment. We don't have that so much when it comes to other applications that we need to support on the Mac.

How are you all managing the patches/updates from Adobe and for Office. Before I invest a lot of time with this, I thought of you all. I am sure others have travelled down this path. I always appreciate your thoughts and insights on this and other topics on this list.

If this topic has been discussed in the past by me or others, I apologize. My to do list is growing rapidly and has expanded onto a 4th page.

Thank you.

Regards,

Mick

    1 reply

    donmontalvo
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    • donmontalvo
    • Hall of Fame
    • February 9, 2011

    Not trivial, but not very complicated. Here's our process, easy to mange and track...

    Download the required patches first. There's a blog that announces each patch, all patches are combo (not delta). Package the updates using AAMEE. Push using Casper.

    1. We created several Adobe CS5 pkg installers with AAMEE (Master Collection, Web Premium, Design Premium and Design Standard; each includes Adobe Acrobat Pro 9 which is currently bundled with the suite(s). This is an uber-package that includes all updates released as of that date. We add the date to the pkg for tracking purposes (added "*_20101201.pkg" at the end of the name).

    2. Every month we gather all updates (since the uber-package was created), package using AAMEE (adding the date again to the name: "*_20110101.pkg")., and deploy to the Macs.

    The above makes it possible to track which pkg the computers have, and which updates package they already have installed, which makes it easy to track what needs to be pushed.

    PS, we have AUSST set up in house, but it's not very useful since our users don't have admin rights. So you can't simply push an update command to the Macs. And gathering updates from AUSST is an exercise in frustration. Adobe has been receptive to our requests to enable Apple SUS like functionality. This way we can push commands to have the Macs call in to AUSST for updates and apply silently. I'm hoping they put some weight on this request...confident they are since they (Jody Rodgers and his team) have done such a great job with AAMEE so far. :)

    Don

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