"Adobe Acrobat Reader DC" detection issue when "Adobe Acrobat Pro" is installed.

[Ithendyr]

Hi, i create a new topic. The last one have been blocked since few days for no reasons...

Since few month we use PMPC, we encounter post installation errors when pushing Adobe Acrobat Reader DC when Adobe Acrobat Pro is already installed.
Our users have the possibility to use Adobe Creative Cloud to manage themself Adobe products related to there licences.
Not all our users have/need an Adobe licence so we require to have Adobe Acrobat Reader on our devices.

In case a user install Adobe Acrobat Pro via Adobe Creative Cloud, the Adobe Acrobat DC requirement stay active and didn't detect te presence of Acrobat Pro.
I joined a screen capture of PMPC app side-by-side with a computer in this case.

I think is just the detection script to update to cover this case.

Thanks for your fix,
Cordialy.

[Ithendyr]

I'm very surprised that nobody cares, it makes you want to keep using the product... (and pay a small fortune)

Below, few screen captures to help to do your job. If PMPC team doesn't about they users, we envisage to leave your services and of course, no longer pay yourself thousands of Euros. Maybe the pressure of losing so much money will make you react a little more.
This problem has existed for a few months since we started using your product. We didn't say anything, hoping you just need some time to analyze and fix the issues, but obviously that's not the case.

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This is a screen capture of the registry on a computer with Adobe Reader DC installed.


This is a screen capture of the registry on a computer with Adobe Acrobat Pro installed side-by-side with the detection script given by PMPC.


This is a screen capture of the documentation given by Adobe about the registry key used by the script.


This is the result of the detection script on a computer with Adobe Acrobat Pro installed.


This is the result of the detection script on a computer with Adobe Acrobat Pro installed. The script have been modified to take in count the presence of other Adobe Acrobat product installed that replace Adobe Reader.
In that case, if the presence of another version with advanced features and that replace a version with a limited features, it's considered as "Installed" because the advanced version has the same functionalities as the limited version which makes it possible not to consider that the installation is necessary.
Anyway in this case, the installation of Adobe Reader refuses to install for the same reason. (watch screen capture on first post)

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Of course, we cannot modify the script each time because for each updates, a new script is used so we need to modifiy it every time.


Cordialy.

[Adam Cook (Patch My PC)]

Hey Ithendyr,

I'm very sorry for the delayed reply. We experienced notification issues when new forum posts were opened. We have fixed this. The delayed reply is unacceptable.

Would you be able to book a support call with me directly so we can troubleshoot the issue together?

Here are a couple of links for this:

• https://calendly.com/adam-patchmypc/30min
• https://calendly.com/d/htr-rdq-czq/patch-my-pc-support-session-with-ithendyr

You will see more immediate and better availability options in the second link if you can meet this week. Otherwise the first link should show plenty of options for next week and onwards.

[Ant]

I talked to the PMPC Support about this issue a while ago and I was told to create a baseline to exclude the clients with Acrobat Pro installed from the targeted collection. But I didn't manage to get this to work properly so I'd be super excited if the suggested solution with the modified detection script would be integrated. Is there any possibility to get a notification if or when this is implemented?

Thanks a lot

[Adam Cook (Patch My PC)]

To verify I understand the request correctly, the request is to make Adobe Acrobat Reader DC evaluate as installed if the superior Adobe Acrobat Pro is installed?

Hmm. I can understand both sides.

To implement such detection into the Adobe Acrobat Reader DC would break convention in our catalogue; we install an app, and detect if _that_ software is installed - this is the premise for all products in our catalogue. This suggestion is to support an alternative logic of: install an app, but if it a superior edition of the same software is installed, return as detected.

[Ant]

Hi Adam

Exactly. Adobe Reader should be detected as installed if either Adobe Reader or Acrobat Pro is installed. This makes sense because if Acrobat Pro is installed, the installation of Acrobat Reder will always fail.

The only possibility to distinguish between the installation of Acrobat Pro and Reader is the registry key which Ithendyr mentioned above.

I understand that it is not ideal to detect an application as installed when it's not actually installed. But since there is no possibility to exclude clients from a collection based on a registry key, this would be the best solution in my opinion. Also, I can't think of any scenario where anyone would want Adobe Reader to be installed when a paid version of Acrobat Pro is already installed.

[Ant]

Hi Adam

Exactly. Adobe Reader should be detected as installed if either Adobe Reader or Acrobat Pro is installed. This makes sense because if Acrobat Pro is installed, the installation of Acrobat Reder will always fail.

The only possibility to distinguish between the installation of Acrobat Pro and Reader is the registry key which Ithendyr mentioned above.

I understand that it is not ideal to detect an application as installed when it's not actually installed. But since there is no possibility to exclude clients from a collection based on a registry key, this would be the best solution in my opinion. Also, I can't think of any scenario where anyone would want Adobe Reader to be installed when a paid version of Acrobat Pro is already installed.

Hi, is there something wrong with my reply that it's still awaiting approval by a moderator since January 5th?

[Adam Cook (Patch My PC)]

Hey Ant,

Thanks for the prompt. I just approved it. Apologies for the delay, I'm not quite sure why I didn't receive a notification for that.

As you know, at this time, what's requested in this post is not existing functionality and it's not currently on the roadmap to support this style of detection, either.

I really do appreciate the candid feedback, though. I don't believe an existing requests on our uservoice for this, so it may be worth raising a new request for it: https://ideas.patchmypc.com.

[rejohnson]

The limited detection logic for Adobe Acrobat DC is also interfering with updates for Acrobat DC x64 and Acrobat Reader DC x64.  Both updates are considered required for a PC with Reader x64 which causes a conflict in ConfigMgr and therefore NO updates are advertised for Reader.  I understand that Adobe has made detection difficult by branding both Acrobat and Reader as "Acrobat", but PMPC is the creator of the detection scripts and should be able to differentiate the two.

[rrice]

I know this is an old thread, but we're having the same issues. However, it goes a bit beyond having both Acrobat and Reader installed on the same machine. I have just Reader and the updates are failing, because it's trying to deploy the full Acrobat update to my machine.

This is starting to get on the nerves of upper management, I can see why. what are the possibilities of adding an uninstall script to the Acrobat detection, that if Reader is also installed, it removes that before updating Acrobat?

Only other option i see is a custom group of devices/users with full Acrobat to be skipped by the Reader updates. But still having to uninstall the Reader from those devices with full Acrobat on them.

[rtruss]

BUMP!

This is still an issue as our reader environment is a mess.  Now I put the fact that users keep reader open when not really using it, but detection is an issue.

looks similar to this post: https://patchmypc.com/forum/index.php?topic=6379.0

A year ago I posted this (https://ideas.patchmypc.com/ideas/PATCHMYPC-I-3180) due to a reader cleanup process it started pulling the full version from users systems as well.  I put blame squarely on Adobe for being lazy, so I hope there is a solution to keeping adobe reader patched without messing with the full versions.

I would LOVE to be able to pull versions of reader from systems as 90% of users really only need the pdf capabilities of Edge these days anyway.  But due to detection this yanks full versions too.