Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro and Distiller InstaDMG Tutorial

[dead2sin]

Here is my second software packaging tutorial. This is for using Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro and Distiller with InstaDMG.

[b]Be aware, that if you install Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro using this methodology, you CANNOT install any licensed adobe products in a separate package. You need to use these directions for installing Acrobat 9 Pro on the image without any other products, or make one package that has any other licensed adobe products as well as Acrobat 9 Pro.[/b]

We have concurrent licensing for 5 Adobe Products + Acrobat 9 Pro, so the package I use contains all 5 of those products as well as Acrobat.

My directions are using Composer, but you can use anything that has good snapshot functionality.

The first step is to make the install package using Composer 7. You will want to mount all the DMGs of the software and updates you want to install copied to the desktop and all the serial numbers ready. The less mounting, copying and opening of random stuff that you do, the cleaner your snapshot will be. I normally copy my Installer .dmg as well as all updates to the desktop and mount them all before I make the first snapshot.

In Composer 7, you will click follow these steps:

1. Open Composer 7, authenticate, and select “New Package”
2. Chose the “New & Modified Snapshot” method for creating the package.
3. Composer will make a snapshot of all the current files and modified dates. This will take a few minutes.
4. After it finishes the SnapShot, install all the applications and updates you would like to have in the package.
5. Open both Acrobat 9 Pro and Distiller so they self-heal. You can choose to install the PDF printer or not install the PDF printer, the choice is yours. If you do choose to install it, it will overwrite any other print settings that are set elsewhere in the image process. I personally set up the pdf printer, then use a firstboot script to set up all additional printers so that there are no conflicts. (You might need to open them both 2x for this to work correctly).
6. Open the Adobe updater found in the utilities folder. This will update the updater app itself.
7. Click “Build Package” in Composer and it will create another snapshot, compare them and put the files that were changed into the package.
8. Look through the files that are in the package and remove the kruft (unnecessary files). Common examples are samba logs, apple remote desktop related things, etc. Now that you have the install done and have cleaned up the files that it installs, continue onward!
9. I got the rest of these directions from the following website: http://itmac.wordpress.com/2008/12/09/adobe-acrobat-admin-password-self-heal-problems/ (Giving credit where credit is due, I am pasting the majority of his instructions in this tutorial because I cannot say it any better).

NOTE: This can only be used if you are packaging this with Composer or something similar. This will only work in the situation mentioned at the top of this article.

Adobe CS and Acrobat Pro/Reader are unfortunately not the easiest applications to deploy in IT, on either the Mac or PC. A common problem is having general users receive a query for administrator credentials when they open Acrobat after installation. This is caused by Adobe Acrobat running through a “Self Heal” procedure when it’s opened. Many times it’s caused by Acrobat wanting to become the default PDF reader for Safari.

You can minimize the chance of this happening by modifying the Self Heal XML file that is created after installing Acrobat. Please note that this IS NOT RECOMMENDED by Adobe, but seems to be the a common modification amongst IT departments rolling out Acrobat. The file to edit is /Library/Application Support/Adobe/Acrobat/AcroEFGPro90SelfHeal.xml (for Adobe Acrobat Pro – Reader may have a slightly different name/location. A quick summary of changes made to the XML file:

Change the string of “YES” to “NO“
Change the string of “REQUIRED” to “NO“

Depending on the flavor of Acrobat, you may also see a “FIRST RUN” value as well. This value should also be changed to “NO“. These changes are case sensitive. Also note you will see the “required” key in lower case letters many times in the XML file. These should not be changed. Only the strings previously mentioned should be changed, and they are always capitalized.

Sometimes you will continue to receive the admin username/password request even after modifying the self heal XML file. To remedy this, I’ve found that logging in under a clean admin account, configuring the Adobe Acrobat Pro/Reader preferences as desired, will result in the following .plist files being modified in ~/Library/Preferences.

com.adobe.acrobat.90.sh.plist
com.adobe.acrobat.pdfviewer.plist
com.adobe.118.registration
com.apple.LaunchServices.plist

If you’re in the image creation process when doing these configurations/testing, you can copy these preference files to the /System/Library/User Template/English.lproj/Library/Preferences directory, and once your image is complete, new users who login to the system will receive these modified prefrence files by default. You could also deploy these changes in .pkg file, and have a script copy these preferences to the User Template and existing user home directories. The Casper Suite allows you to build specialized packages that can deploy these changes to both the User Template and existing user directories, if needed. Although I haven’t tried, I would guess these preferences could also be managed by MCX/Workgroup Manager if you have your Macs bound to an Open Directory server and are managing them in that manner.

Click here for a .pdf of the Self Heal XML file. Feel free to try it out, modify, and use if needed. This is the self heal file for Adobe Acrobat Pro 9. Those for Reader and version 8 of Acrobat Pro are different, so don’t try and use this one. Instead, compare the changes made on this file and apply to yours as needed. Good luck.

This must also be done for the Distiller Self-heal file. It should be called AcroENUDist90SelfHeal.xml. It will need to be placed in Application Data.

10. Once you have done the above, you should be ready to build the image. Keep in mind that the above 4 files MUST be in the User Template and the self heal files must be edited, otherwise it will not work.

Feel free to ask any questions or if you have issues.

Nate

[dead2sin]

Here are the registration files needed for CS4 to not prompt to register:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/11466/CS4RegFiles.zip

These go in the User Template (/System/Library/User Template/English.lproj/Library/Preferences).

These registration files are for Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Dreamweaver, Flash and Acrobat 9 Pro.

If anyone has questions, feel free to post.

[dead2sin]

Updated guide specifically for CS5 + Acrobat 9 Pro:

[url]http://www.osxdeployment.info/wiki/CS5_Repackaging_Guide[/url]

Nate

[Allister Banks]

Great work Nate! Thanks for keeping your wiki updated as well. Keep it going!

Allister

[Allister Banks]

This isn’t working for me, but my testing with pushing preferences into User Template and other directories wasn’t done scientifically enough for me to track this down. I’ve used the Normal Snapshot method to successfully package a fully-updated Acrobat, but am still experimenting with what files to leave out/modify in the final image. I’ll report back, this has been quite the bug in my butt.

Allister

[dead2sin]

[QUOTE][u]Quote by: Allister[/u][p]This isn’t working for me, but my testing with pushing preferences into User Template and other directories wasn’t done scientifically enough for me to track this down. I’ve used the Normal Snapshot method to successfully package a fully-updated Acrobat, but am still experimenting with what files to leave out/modify in the final image. I’ll report back, this has been quite the bug in my butt.

Allister[/p][/QUOTE]

Acrobat is the hugest PITA out of all the adobe products on OS X. It shares the same licensing database as CS4/CS5 products, but serializes in a totally different manner (On first run + it self heals). If you can give me an idea of exactly what you are wanting to accomplish, I might be able to offer some more specific help.

Nate

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