Perform a silent uninstallation of Adobe Creative Suite 4 and point products
What's covered
- Products affected
- Overview of silent uninstallation
- Creating the XML configuration file
- Performing the silent uninstallation
- Confirming that a silent uninstallation has been successful
- Additional Information
When you purchase a volume license for Adobe Creative Suite 4 product, Adobe provides an option that allows you to run a silent uninstallation (that is, an uninstallation with preselected options and no interface) on Windows or Mac OS X. In a silent uninstallation, a custom installer runs the installers for each product in the suite by using command-line installation tools. Silent uninstallations are also used as basis for enterprise deployment of Creative Suite 4 products.
This document will cover the process and necessary files to run the Adobe Creative Suite 4 product silently. For additional information on this process please refer to, "Adobe® Creative Suite 4 Enterprise Manual Deployment Guide".
Products affected
The steps included in this document apply to the following products:
- Affect Effects
- Audition
- Contribute
- Creative Suite Design Premium
- Creative Suite Design Standard
- Dreamweaver
- Encore DVD
- Fireworks
- Flash
- Illustrator
- InCopy
- Creative Suite Master Collection
- OnLocation
- Photopshop
- Photoshop Extended
- Premiere
- Premiere Pro
- Creative Suite Production Premium
- Soundboth
- Creative Suite Web Preimum
- Creative Suite Web Standard
Overview of Silent Uninstallation
Setting up a silent uninstallation consists of creating an XML configuration file and then using a command line interface or script to carry out the process of removing the software using the information stored in this configuration file.
We have developed a tool to simplify the process of creating the files necessary to silently install the Adobe Creative Suite 4 products. The Creative Suite Deployment Tool (CSDT) will create a custom package that will reduce the step necessary to create a package.
You must have a single source of the Adobe Creative Suite 4 product installer. If you received the product on multiple DVDs or files you must create installation point. For additional information on creating a installation point please follow, "Install Adobe Creative Suite 4 and Point Products from the desktop (Windows XP and Vista)" (TechNote kb403963) or "Install Adobe Creative Suite 4 and Point Products from the desktop (Mac OS X)" (TechNote kb403964.) You can store the installation source locally on the machine or in a shared network location.
Creating the XML configuration file
For additional information on how to to create the uninstall xml file please refer to, "Perform a silent installation of Adobe Creative Suite 4 or Point Products" (TechNote kb405451). This process not only creates the appropriate XML configuration file for installing the software ("Adobe Creative Suite 4 Web Premium.install.xml"), it also generates an equivalent removal configuration file ("Adobe Creative Suite 4 Web Premium.remove.xml") and ensures that the correct data is written into both files.
By default these files are located in
- On Mac OS:
/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Installers/ - On Windows:
\Program Files\Adobe\Installers\
Note: Entering %COMMONPROGRAMFILES% in place of '\Program Files" will take you to the right location.
Performing the silent uninstallation
Silent uninstallation for Mac OS
A silent uninstallation on Macintosh started by running the setup executable as super user through a command line. Use the following command line from the directory where setup is.
sudo Setup.app/Contents/MacOS/Setup --mode=silent --deploymentFile="path to uninstaller file"
Replace path to installer file with the full path to the custom uninstall.xml file that you created.
The CSDT will create an installer for initiating the Adobe Creative Suite 4 product installation. Run the application file on the command line to perform the installation.
sudo UberUnInstaller.app/Contents/MacOS/Setup
Silent uninstallation for Windows
A silent uninstallation on Windows started by running setup.exe through a command line. This should be done as administrator. Use the following command line from the Adobe Creative Suite 4 product setup.exe directory.
setup --mode=silent --deploymentFile="path to uninstaller file"
Replace path to installer file with the full path to the custom uninstall.xml that you created.
The CSDT will create an installer for initiating the Adobe Creative Suite 4 product installation. Run the executable file on the command line to perform the installation.
UberUnInstaller.exe
Confirming that a silent uninstallation has been successful
If the silent uninstallation is successful you should see an "exit code" of 0 in the command line:
Exit Code: 0
To be completely sure that your attempt to uninstall has been successful, it is a good idea to check the log written to:
- On Macintosh
/Library/Logs/Adobe/Installers/[product_name].log.gz - On Windows
\Program Files\Adobe\Installers\[product_name].log.gz
Towards the end of the log, you should find an entry with the keyword "INFO" in it. The following example demonstrates the inforamtion at the end of the installation log. X is the number of components removed during the process.
[ 3620] Fri Jul 25 10:12:32 2008 INFO
Checking bootstrapper progress
Ran uninstall for the bootstrapper
Total components installed: 0
Total components repaired: 0
Successfully removed x components:
This should be followed by a list of components which have been removed.
If there is a problem with the uninstallation, typically an exit code other than 0 will be returned. For additional information on finding and reading the Adobe Creative Suite 4 product installation log, please refer to, "Find and read installation logs for Adobe Creative Suite 3 and 4 products" (TechNote kb400593.)
Here is an example of how the log file might look if the installed components and the components you are attempting to remove do not match:
[ 1704] Fri Jul 25 12:45:29 2008 ERROR
Found payload conflicts and errors:
- critical
- Adobe Creative Suite 4 Web Premium depends on AmericanEnglishSpeechAnalysisModels to be installed.
- critical
- Adobe Creative Suite 4 Web Premium depends on GermanSpeechAnalysisModels to be installed.
- critical
- Adobe Creative Suite 4 Web Premium depends on SpanishSpeechAnalysisModels to be installed.
[ 1704] Fri Jul 25 12:45:29 2008 FATAL
Exception: Conflicts were found in the selected payloads. Halting installation.
Exit code: 7
[ 1704] Fri Jul 25 12:45:29 2008 INFO
Additional Information
When you uninstall your software silently, the install.xml file and uninstall.xml you use MUST match each other or the process will fail. You cannot perform an incremental silent uninstall with Creative Suite 4 and Point Products. See "Support policy for modified silent uninstallations of Adobe Creative Suite 4 and Point Products" (TechNote kb404125) for additional information.
Although an exit code of 0 is generally an indication that your uninstallation has been completed successfully, in certain circumstances the uninstallation process will return exit code 0, even though not all the components have been removed. It is therefore advisable to check the log file to confirm that the components you expected to be removed have indeed been deleted. Using the record=1 process or the Creative Suite Deployment Tool should eliminate any problems generated by malformed xml data.
On Mac OS, if you run your silent installation from a mounted dmg file, after completing the uninstallation process you need to manually unmount it or wait until the machine restarts.
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