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Virtualizing and Streaming Adobe CS4 - Part III 

Jul 21, 2009 12:17 PM

A few steps back...

When I write these articles I am pretty sure I end up learning much more than I would have otherwise. After I wrote the first two articles I was doing some testing on both my layer of Adobe CS4 (on a machine and streamed) and I bumped into a few problems. The first is that the software would randomly ask if I wanted to register. The second was updates (they would decide to run at random times). I decided that I needed to figure out how to disable these features before I rolled this software out to the users in my environment. Luckily it was an easy solution. The only bad thing is that it caused me to rebuild the second layer (the one with everything but Acrobat). Here is how you disable the Registration, EULA, and Updates prompt:

The first thing that you should do is copy all of your files to your desktop (or some other location you can easily access). Once they are done copying you are ready to go. Now, we need to identify what Adobe calls " the driver payload folder" . From what I can gather, we are looking for the folder that has the main components of Adobe CS4. The folder name is listed in a file called "Setup.xml". Here is how you can find that folder:

  • Navigate to the folder that has "Setup.exe" in it (Adobe calls this the "installation folder")
  • Find and open the "Payloads" folder
  • In the Payloads folder you will find "Setup.xml". Open it with a program like "Notepad" or "Wordpad"

You will see something like this:

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In this example, you see this: <Driver folder="AdobeDesignSuitePremium4-mul" /> - The part in bold is the folder name that we are looking for. This will change depending on what flavor of Adobe CS4 you have. Now that you have "the driver payload folder" name. We are ready to move to the next step.

  • Open Notepad
  • Enter the following text into your blank document:
    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
    <Configuration>
    <Payload>
    <Data key="Registration">Suppress</Data>
    <Data key="EULA">-1</Data>
    <Data key="Updates">Suppress</Data>
    </Payload>
    </Configuration>
    

You can remove anything that you don't want suppressed (like if you want them to accept the EULA remove the following line: <Data key=" EULA" >-1</Data>). Once you are done save the file with the following name: application.xml.override. Make sure that the ending extension is .override and not .txt. This file needs to be saved in the folder named: AdobeDesignSuitePremium4-mul (now you know why we had to go to all of that work to find it).

Now when your users use this layer they won't be asked to register the product or be prompted for updates.

Notes:

  • For more information, please refer to this PDF: http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/openoptions/pdfs/manualenterprisedeployment_cs4_help.pdf
  • After I install Adobe CS4 I went to the C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Updater6\Adobe_Updater.exe to manually update the Adobe suite. I want the software to be up-to-date, but I don't want it to prompt the end user to update it

A few steps forward:

Now we are ready to prepare our layers to be streamed. Both layers will go through the same process so I am only going to walk you through one. For fun, lets do the Acrobat layer that we created in the first article in this series.

  • Open the Streaming Composer
  • On the first window appears, make sure that the " Virtual Software Package (.VSA) radio button is selected

    imagebrowser image

  • Next, fill in your " Package Path"
    • Note: If you have problems preparing your layer for streaming it could have something to do with the total file path length. I noticed that some of the paths inside Adobe CS4 are really long. If you combine the really long folder paths inside the layer with the long path to your Package Path things may not work. To get around this I just create my Package Path on the C:\ drive (like this: C:\ACS4DSP-Acrobat). After I am done I copy the files to my central storage location

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  • Now that everything is filled out, you can click the "OK" button on the bottom right of the window

Now we have done all of the prep work we are actually working in the Streaming Composer. On the first screen you can select the VSA file that we will be working with, as show in the picture below:

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When you have selected the VSA file, you are ready to click on the "Import" button. The following window will appear while the VSA is importing:

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Note: It may take a while to import these layers. Even though we have split Adobe CS4 into two layers they are still pretty big.

After it is done doing its thing you will see this screen:

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I like to back up a few steps and make sure that everything is setup correctly. Let's go through the screens:

  • Properties
    • On this screen I like to enter the Vendor Name, Vendor Version, and Installation Type

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  • System Requirements
    • On this screen you can decide what operating systems you want to stream. We use Windows XP in our environment, but I want to keep all of our options open so I don't change this screen:

      imagebrowser image

  • Execution Scripts
    • As you can see below, you can run a script at a variety of different times while streaming:

      imagebrowser image

      This screen gives you lots of different options when it comes to streaming.

  • Setup configurations
    • On this screen you can see all of the shortcuts associated with the program and their command line paths

      imagebrowser image

      The Streaming Composer does a great job of finding the correct paths on its own. But, if you need to tweak a path you know where to go now...

  • Streamlets
    • And, now we are back to the screen we started with:

      imagebrowser image

      Click on the " Run" button to make the streamlets

You will see the following progress bar while the streamlets are being created:

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and some of this:

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Again, because this is a big layer it may take a while for all of the streamlets to get created.

Once the streamlets are created you will see this screen:

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Press the "Create" button to finish the process. You will see the following screen while the final package is being created:

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When everything is done you will see the following screen:

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Press the "OK" button to continue

This was a pretty straightforward process. The only thing to keep in mind is that if you bump into any problems while creating a streaming package of Adobe CS4 you may want to check your file path lengths. If they are too long things may not work. If you create your workspace as close as you can to the root of C:\ you should be all set.

Now that we have created the streaming package we can upload it to the server. In the next article we will talk about uploading the package to the server, setting up the package training, licensing, and more. Stay tuned.

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Comments

May 25, 2010 09:17 AM


In the end I did get it to package by installing to d:\cs4 but this was not Ideal,

I am now trialing 6.2 which looks to deal with the issue of the long path names as well as the file size issues I had been having.

Dec 11, 2009 10:10 AM

CS4 master collection produces some stupidly long path/filenames that ended up being 270 od charecters long when extracted, even instaling the suite to c:\cs4 and extracting the storing the project in d:\c4 produced a file name that was 7 or so charecters to long...

With the help of symantec I think we've cracked it,  I need to move the install dir out of \[_B_]systemdrive[_E_]\ to a folder called just \c\

So far this has imported into the streaming composer OK, Which is an improvement on what I had before..

Nov 11, 2009 07:03 AM

Interesting article, I wish I could folow it through but I'm having problems importing the vsa file. It keeps failing to unzip/extract the files. Not always the same file either, I've checked the reives not full I've set ti to extract to as short a path as I can but still keeps failing,  Any one got any Ideas?

Kris

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