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Customize Adobe Reader XI installation for deployment

27 Feb , 2015,
arien

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Adobe Reader is a very common application and you can find very good documentation on it.
In this post I will do my way of scripting and customizing the Adobe Reader XI installation for deployment. It’s not that hard to do but documenting helps me to remember all the steps together for maybe the next version and next time.

You need a few directories to work with the steps:

Reader Folders

The Source folder will have the full version of the Adobe Reader XI installation to begin with. In this case the file is AdbeRdr11010_en_US.exe (latest english).

Now we will extract the MSI-installation files from the wrapper with a special command:

Reader extract wrapperSource\AdbeRdr11010_en_US.exe -nos_o”C:\Reader\MSI” -nos_ne

You now have the following files to work with
Reader MSI files

Now you will make an administrative installation for network deployment:

Reader Admin installationMsiexec.exe /a <pad MSI>\AcroRead.msi and choose the Admin folder to put the Admin-install in.

The Admin files looks like
Reader Admin files

Now we can apply the MSP to the Admin because this is not included:

Reader msiexec patchMsiexec.exe /a Admin\AcroRead.msi /p MSI\AdbeRdrUpd11010.msp and choose the same Admin folder for the destination of this process

To make changes to the Acrobat products, the best way is to use the Adobe Customization Wizard XI. Install it and start it up.

In the CustWiz; use the MSI in the MSI-folder because it contains a Setup.ini you’ll need.

Suppress EULA Reader CustWiz EULA
Unattend and Supress reboot Reader CustWiz reboot
Desktop shortcut removed Reader CustWiz shortcuts
HKLM\
SOFTWARE\
Policies\
Adobe\
Acrobat Reader\
11.0\
FeatureLockDown\
bProtectedMode
Data: 0 (DWORD) for AppSense Peronalisation crash!
Reader CustWiz registry
No updates and online features ofcourse Reader CustWiz updates and online

When you’re done save all changes in a Transform like AcroRead_OrgName.mst and place it in the Admin-directory
Go to Transform> Generate Transform to create your .MST file.

Installing the complete package with latest version 11.0.10 you’ve made can be done with the command: msiexec /i AcroRead.msi TRANSFORMS=AcroRead_Orgname.mst /qb!

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