TechNote

Troubleshoot Adobe AIR installation issues (Windows, Mac OS)

What's covered

Installing Adobe AIR
Installing an Adobe AIR application
Removing previous versions of Adobe AIR
Removing Adobe AIR applications

Adobe AIR installation has two parts: installing Adobe AIR itself (also known as the "runtime") and installing the Adobe AIR application. The free runtime is the underlying technology from Adobe that enables internet applications to be installed and run across the desktop operating system. Adobe AIR applications are built on the runtime and are distributed as .air files.

If you encounter problems installing Adobe AIR, follow the troubleshooting steps below. If one step does not correct the problem, move on to the next step. After each step, you may want to restart your machine to ensure that your changes take effect before moving on to the next step.

Installing Adobe AIR

If you encounter problems installing Adobe AIR, the free runtime can be downloaded directly from the Adobe AIR Download Center at http://get.adobe.com/air/.

Administrative access is always required for installation of Adobe AIR. In some situations you can install an Adobe AIR application if it is installed in a location that is writeable by the current user account. If you do not have write permissions, contact your systems administrator.

To verify that Adobe AIR is installed and functioning correctly, go to the AIR product page at www.adobe.com/products/air and link to the available sample or Showcase AIR applications to download and install.

Installing an Adobe AIR application

In most cases, when you install an AIR application, the runtime installation will also be initiated, and Adobe AIR will be installed to your computer along with the Adobe AIR application. If you are able to get Adobe AIR installed but still encounter issues installing a specific Adobe AIR application, try to download and save the application installer file (.air file) to your desktop. Then double-click the .air file to install the application.

Administrative access may be required for installation of the Adobe AIR application, depending on whether it is installed to a location that is writeable by the current user account. If you do not have write permissions, contact your systems administrator.

When installing an AIR application, the AIR Application installer may attempt to connect to an Internet service to authenticate the identity of the application. Anti-virus or security software may report this attempt to connect to an Internet service, and you should allow this connection to install the AIR application. For example, you may see an alert that says "Adobe AIR installer.exe is attempting to connect to a DNS server."

Removing previous versions of Adobe AIR

If you encounter issues when you attempt to install Adobe AIR applications on your system, you may need to remove and re-install Adobe AIR. For example, if the installation stalls at the "Application Install" dialog, or if you see an "Installation Error" message, Adobe recommends that you remove and reinstall Adobe AIR.

Note: Prerelease or beta versions of Adobe AIR should be removed prior to installation of the Adobe AIR 1.0 release version.

To remove Adobe AIR on Windows, do the following:

Select Start > Settings > Control Panel.
Open the Add or Remove Programs panel.
Select Adobe AIR to remove the runtime.
Click the Change/Remove button.

To remove Adobe AIR on Mac OS, double-click the Adobe AIR Uninstaller (Adobe AIR Uninstaller.app)in your Applications/Utilities folder.

To remove Adobe AIR on Linux, click the Adobe AIR Uninstaller menu item under Applications > Accessories.

Removing Adobe AIR applications

Each Adobe AIR application appears as a separate entry on your system and is listed separately in the Add/Remove programs list on Windows.

To remove an Adobe AIR application on Windows:

Select Start > Settings > Control Panel.
Open the Add or Remove Programs panel.
Select the application that you want to remove.
Click the Change/Remove button.

To remove an Adobe AIR application on Mac OS, drag the application to the Trash.

On Linux, Adobe AIR applications are installed as native packages (rpm or deb). To remove an Adobe AIR application on Linux, launch the system package manager (e.g. Synaptic on Ubuntu), search for the application that you want to remove and mark it for removal. You may need to click on an Apply or Accept button to remove the application.