Month: June 2014

App-V 5.0 SP2 Hotfix Package 5

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Microsoft recently released Hotfix Package 5 for App-V 5.0 SP2. The first two below are items that I’ve wanted for a while:

1 – Enabling user-publishing in the Administrator context through Windows PowerShell

This hotfix release enables user-publishing to be done in the Administrator context through the following four Windows PowerShell cmdlets:

Publish-AppVClientPackage
Unpublish-AppVClientPackage
Enable-AppVClientConnectionGroup
Disable-AppVClientConnectionGroup

To do this, use the optional -UserSID parameter, and pass in the SID of the intended user.

2 – Connection groups cannot support both user-published and global-published packages

With this hotfix release, App-V 5.0 SP2 supports creating user-entitled connection groups that contain user-published and global-published packages by using Windows PowerShell.

3 – Deprecation of PackageStoreAccessControl support in App-V 5.0 SP2

Effective immediately, the PackageStoreAccessControl (PSAC) setting that was introduced in App-V 5.0 SP2 is being deprecated in both single-user and multiuser environments.

 

Download the hotfix and get more information here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2963211/en-us

Updating a new Adobe Acrobat install

Ryan 2 Comments

About to deploy Acrobat and find there are a lot of updates to install? Good luck trying to find an updated installer higher than version XX.0. Not only is it a pain to download and run every applicable update, trying to figure out the upgrade path can be like doing super math.

To make your life a little easier when deploying Acrobat, follow these steps:

1 .Determine the upgrade path

There is an Acrobat and Reader release notes page that can help you determine the upgrade path. Click on the version numbers to determine what version is required before that update can be applied. The patching got a little easier in 10.X and 11.X with more cumulative updates, but 9.x is still a PITA. For version 9, I suggest you obtain the upgrade path from here.

2. Download the update(s)

You can download all updates from this page.

3. Modify the Acrobat setup.ini

Next, grab your xx.0 installer and extract it with an archive utility such as WinRAR.

Open setup.ini with notepad and look for the [Product] section. Start a new line here line that begins with “Patch=” and list the MSPs in order from oldest to newest separated by a semi-colon.

Here are some examples of what your Patch line would be at the time of this writing:

Acrobat 11:

Patch=”AcrobatUpd11007.msp”

Acrobat 10:

Patch=”AcrobatUpd10110.msp”

Acrobat 9:

Patch=”AcroProStdUpd910_T1T2_incr.msp;AcrobatUpd912_all_incr.msp;
AcrobatUpd913_all_incr.msp;AcrobatUpd920_all_incr.msp;AcrobatUpd930_all_incr.msp;
AcrobatUpd932_all_incr.msp;AcrobatUpd933_all_incr.msp;AcrobatUpd940_all_incr.msp;
AcrobatUpd942_all_incr.msp;AcrobatUpd945_all_incr.msp;AcrobatUpd946_all_incr.msp;
AcrobatUpd950_all_incr.msp;AcrobatUpd951_all_incr.msp;AcrobatUpd952_all_incr.msp;
AcrobatUpd953_all_incr.msp;AcrobatUpd955_all_incr.msp”

4. Copy in your patches

Place all of the MSPs into the root of the installation folder. This is the same folder that contains setup.ini.

5. Install

Run the Acrobat install and let it run all of the updates for you. The final version to be installed should be displayed in the installation menus. This can help you verify the latest version will be ready when the install is complete.

Optional

Use the Adobe customization wizard to generate a custom install. You can insert your license key, change the install directory, set default PDF viewers, disable the EULA, and many other useful settings. You can grab Adobe customization wizard 9 here,  X here, and XI here.

Hopefully these steps can keep you from going crazy when deploying Adobe Acrobat (especially version 9).