We've been deploying and updating Reader via GPO for years, but this is the first time we've done Acrobat. The steps I've done:
1) Created AIP from 10.0 download
2) Patched it to 10.1.4
3) Customised with Wizard (added site licence, disabled acrobat.com etc)
4) Published via GPO with generated mst.
5) Apparently successfully installed via Control Panel with non-admin user. The application seems to work fine.
6) Tried to uninstall via Control Panel and was asked for local administrator credentials, the message being that the installation msi (on the installation network share) needed to make changes. Note: the tick box for cache installation files locally is checked in the customisation wizard.
This is a problem in itself but perhaps more importantly, it will prevent future updates. To test this I did:
7) To a clean machine deployed 10.0.0 with the same .mst
8) Published 10.1.4 as an update to 10.0.0
9) Tried to update 10.0.0 10.1.4 as a non-admin user via Control Panel. The update failed as uninstalling 10.0.0 required admin rights to uninstall.
10) Tried the same but assigning the packages (as we would do for lab machines). The update failed with the event log showing the problem that 10.0.0 couldn't be uninstalled due to lack of admin privileges.
I've never had this problem with Reader, or indeed any other package deployed via GPO, since of course Windows Installer is running as a privileged user. Can anybody advise as to why Acrobat is requesting admin credentials, or point out where I'm going wrong in the installation process? Obviously there must be thousands of you out there deploying Acrobat X Pro via GPO successfully to users without admin rights on their machines.
Many thanks
Phil
Update:
I've just tried publishing a vanilla 10.0.0 version (no .mst). It again installs fine, but the uninstall requests admin credentials so that the install msi on the network share my 'make changes to this computer'. One thing I do note is that the verified publisher of the app is given as unknown.
Update 2:
I need to revise my statement that the install is OK. Although the app seems to fire up OK from the desktop, the icons are not correct and the shortcuts on the start menu do not function correctly, giving errors in the logs along the lines of ID 1001 Detection of product '{AC76BA86-1033-F400-7760-000000000005}', feature 'ViewerProgramFiles' failed during request for component '{ etc.
Running the installer from a startup script does result in a correctly installed app, icons and all. Whilst that is interesting, since we manage all our installs and upgrades via GPO (and we want to publish this not assign it), it is not a solution. Hasn't anyone seen anything like this before?