Problems with TCS3, Adobe Application Manager, and Acrobat X

[1jsadob11sg]

I have to deploy Technical Communications Suite 3 to a group of 20 people with a volume license key.  In order to avoid giving 20 people in the company a volume key, I'm using the Adobe Application Manager to build a distributable silent installer for this delivery.  The problem is that when you use the Adobe Application  Manager to create the build, Adobe Acrobat Professional X (which is part of the package) is not an installable option, nor is it actually installed as seen in the attached screenshot

However, if I just launch the installer by double-clicking Set-up.exe from the downloaded media directory, I do get the option to add Acrobat X.

Finally, if I drill into the installation media folder, "...\Adobe Technical Communication Suite 3\payloads\AcrobatProfessional10.0-EFG" there is a .msi which is for Acrobat X, but when launched, the product key I was provided for Technical Communications Suite 3 does not work.  The key works just fine to install the entire suite, but not Acrobat X by itself.

Has anyone else had any luck creating a silent install for TCS3?  I called support and reproduced the problem for them, but they had no answer.

Just for the record, I have found this exact same behavior with all the Adobe Suites which are supposed to get Acrobat.

[Maike_Roder]

Hi,

yes, it's strange, but here's the process you need to follow for your deployment of TCS3 with Acrobat X Pro:
+ please check that no older TCS and Acrobat is installed
+ if there's an older version, please deinstall it and check or install MSXML4 (see Exceptions)
+ check or install DOTNET3 (see Exceptions) build your TCS3 build (with all patches, without Acrobat X Pro)
+ start TCS3 setup! and install (not silent!) Acrobat X Pro
The reason: Adobe believes Acrobat has been installed before as usual. That's it.
If you have FINALYSER too, there is a silent method of installing in a network with a company volume key.

- Maike

[1jsadob11sg]

Update:

I spoke with Adobe support on this issue.  They acknoledged that there is a problem with the Adobe Application Manager where it doesn't support Adobe Acrobat.  They are working on the issue but there's no eta on a solution.  In order to deploy Acrobat with TCS (or any of the other quites packaged with the Application Manager) in an enterprise environment, it needs to be installed separately which requires a separate volume key for Acrobat itself.

Adobe really needs to put some more effort in their support for volume license installs for deployment.

[anarora]

This is true that Adobe Application Manager Enterprise Edition currently does not support silently deploying Acrobat alongwith TCS3. However, you do not need a separate license key for Acrobat.

Pls follow the below mentioned steps to silently install TCS 3 with Acrobat:

1) Uninstall TCS3 (including Acrobat) from your machine, if already present. Make sure all products are uninstalled succesfully.

2) Create a serialized package for TCS 3 using the AAMEE tool

3) Run the silent installation command for TCS3

4) Goto the Exceptions folder inside the TCS 3 package and open ExceptionInfo.txt. This has information of all the products that this package will not install. Look for the command to install Acrobat X Pro. For your reference, I am mentioning it here,

msiexec.exe /i AcroPro.msi EULA_ACCEPT=NO REGISTRATION_SUPPRESS=YES SUITEMODE=1 TRANSFORMS=en_US.mst INSTALLLEVEL=101 AS_DISABLE_LEGACY_COLOR=1 IGNOREAAM=1 /qn

5) Install Acrobat silently using this command

6) Launch any product installed through TCS ( FrameMaker or RoboHelp) and verify that its activated (Help->Deactivate menu should be enabled)

7) Now launch Acrobat. You will see that Acrobat automatically picks up TCS 3 license present in the machine and gets serialized. You do not need any other serial number.

Hope that helps,

Anchal

FrameMaker Engineering Team