Planning to push the most current adobe reader to several users.

The problem is different versions of older adobe reader is already installed on the machines.

So my question is how do I go about removing the older versions from the machines and install the most current one?

If I have to create a package for each adobe version, that would be very tedious. Please let me know if there is any other way.

thanks

You can upgrade Adobe Reader using .msp files. Prajwal has a good blog here

http://prajwaldesai.com/deploying-adobe-reader-updates-using-sccm-2012-r2/

THe powershell app deployment toolkit (http://psappdeploytoolkit.codeplex.com/) has the ability to remove applications (Remove-MSIApplications).  Check it out for wrapping your install and uninstall together. . .

Jeff

thanks for your quick response, but that doesn't do an upgrade/update all together for all versions, does it?

I don't know what versions you have. You'll have to do an inventory of versions and test them.

cool. i will look into that.

thanks

If you use Adobe's Customation Wizard and configure to remove all versions, I have found that this does this reasonably well. Most of our clients only had one version of Reader installed, however, so not sure how well it would if multiple versions are installed. The 11.x reader, however, upgraded 9.x and 10.x systems without issue. I used the full package because we had various instances of "slipstreamed" update installs and using the .MSP method would fail in these scenarios. Using the full package ensured everyone had the exact same version and configuration once upgraded. Going forward, I can continue to use the full package method or simply deploy the .MSP.

We have the base 11.x .exe version extracted. We use the wizard to create the .mst. The setup.ini is configured with our command line and patch switches so we don't need to use any when setup.exe is run:

[Startup]

RequireMSI=3.0

CmdLine=/sPB /rs

[Product]

msi=AcroRead.msi

CmdLine=TRANSFORMS="AcroRead.mst"

PATCH=AdbeRdrUpd11010.msp

The .msp file is copied into the extracted folder, which should like this:

ABCPY.INI

AcroRead.msi

AcroRead.mst

AdbeRdrUpd11010.msp

Data1.cab

setup.exe

Setup.ini

You should be able to run setup.exe without any switches. Otherwise, you can do a batch file with removal commands for all other versions and then run the setup.exe. As suggested, the PowerShell App Deploy Kit works well for this also.

If you want to update older Main versions the MSI from Adobe will do the job (9.x / 10.x -> 11.x) because of the authored UpgradeTable. In my experience this works 99.8%

http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/product.jsp?product=10&platform=Windows

Version 11.0.10

This update requires that Adobe Reader 11.0 or later is installed on your system

So will patch anything above 11.0

Msiexec /P AdbeRdrUpd11010.msp /norestart /qn

We never normally bother with the .ini we just push out the MSI with the transform to turn off updates etc.

thank you all for your responses.

I now have some ideas.

You could use System Center Updates Publisher (SCUP) to achieve that. Adobe Reader Updates will be published through Windows Updates. Adobe Reader SCUP catalog is available online.

• Proposed as answer by Hermann Gaëtan 10 hours 23 minutes ago

You could use System Center Updates Publisher (SCUP) to achieve that. Adobe Reader Updates will be published through Windows Updates. Adobe Reader SCUP catalog is available online.

• Proposed as answer by Hermann Gaëtan Thursday, March 26, 2015 9:22 PM