Does anyone know of a good tool for managing updates to Acrobat Reader?
I’ve just noticed that there is yet another security update, and I’d love to find something as good as WSUS to manage it.
Do the third-party tools like Shavlik do the trick?
Answer
I install Adobe Reader via Group Policy and software assignment. I’ve been applying MSP-based patches to my Adobe Reader installation points and then instructing client computers to reinstall via the “Redeploy…” functionality in Group Policy. I don’t particularly like doing things this way, but it’s the least labor-intensive method I can see.
This recent Adobe Reader patch (9.1.2) is MSP-based, so I’m able to deploy it in my usual manner. If Adobe decides to start distributing EXE-based patches, then I’ve got a problem and have to begin writing scripts. (Hopefully they’ll stick to a Windows Installer based patching regime from here on out. We’ll see…)
If they do go to EXE-based updates, I’ll write scripts to deploy them silently via computer startup scripts. (If you’ve got the money to pony-up for Microsoft’s System Center Configuration Manager, you can use the built-in System Center Update Publisher to deploy these types of updates.)
Having the client computers download patches themselves via the built-in updater functionality in Adobe Reader is useless to me. I need to be able to centrally control the deployment of updates such that I can test the update prior to deployment. Users don’t have “Administrator” rights on their computers and can’t install any updates themselves anyway. I disable the updater as a transform to the MSI for Adobe Reader.
I’ve never used a third-party patch management tool, so I can’t comment. Patch management tools that claim to automate the patching process have always given me a bit of pause. Tools that do “snapshotting” aren’t actually capturing the logic in an installer, and could do the wrong thing under circumstances different than when the snapshot was taken. Tools that “silently install” patches often require the same amount of work that I’d put into writing a script to install the patch anyway. As such, I’m dubious of the effectiveness and reliablity of “patch management” tools over using software assignment, “Redeploy…”, and hand-written scripts to deploy patches.
Attribution
Source : Link , Question Author : Richard Gadsden , Answer Author : Evan Anderson
