TechNote

Acrobat and Reader Update Types

In order to provide customers with improved care for both functional and security based updates, the Adobe Acrobat and Reader development teams have intentionally delineated two types of Updates("patches"):

• Security Update -  A fast turnaround update targeted at specific fixes, and which includes minimal or no functional updating with the intention to limit impact.
• Quarterly Update -  A fully encompassing update which includes functional improvements as requested by customers, and also includes any Security updates encountered during the previous quarterly period.

User Installation

An end user may install any or all of the released patches in sequence without limitation. Patches may be installed individually, by "chaining", and either through Adobe Updater or by double-clicking to launch the Update file.

Administrative Deployment

Due to the intentional difference between "Security" and "Quarterly" Updates, IT professionals desiring to deploy Acrobat or Reader products from an Administration Installation Point (AIP) must follow certain guidelines as noted below.

• AIP Creation: Quarterly Updates cannot be applied to an AIP in which a Security Update was the most recently applied Update. Therefore, to deploy a new full Quarterly Update from an AIP, create an AIP (or use previous) which includes only Quarterly Updates.

To clarify, shown below are examples of acceptable and UNacceptable "AIP" configurations:

    Acceptable:      Acrobat 9.0.0 (Original Product) -> 9.1.0 (Quarterly) -> 9.1.1 (Security)

    Acceptable:      Acrobat 9.0.0 (Original Product) -> 9.1.0 (Quarterly) -> 9.1.2 (Quarterly)

    Unacceptable:  Acrobat 9.0.0 (Original Product) -> 9.1.0 (Quarterly) -> 9.1.1 (Security) -> 9.1.2 (Quarterly)

Note, Attempting to create an AIP using the last configuration shown above will fail. The failure, however, serves to prevent a usage of updates which is not recommended by Adobe.

• AIP Deployment: Since a Quarterly Update includes the changes implemented in all recent Security updates, the Quarterly update forcibly bypasses those updates entirely.

Workaound for User installations, which were deployed from an AIP containing a Security update as the last update applied

In order to successfully deploy a Quarterly update onto these User systems, the Msiexec.exe "v" option must be added to the commandline. An example syntax is as follows:

msiexec /i <path of msi on AIP> REINSTALL=ALL REINSTALLMODE=vomus

Using the above command line with the option "vomus" present will cause the MSI to run from the source AIP and re-cache the User's local MSI for future changes or repair. This is the most trustworthy method for deploying updates of this nature.

Update File Information

Acrobat and Reader version 9.x 

Version 9 Current Recommended AIP Configuaration:

Acrobat: 9.0.0 > 9.1.0 > 9.1.2 

Reader: 9.1.0 > 9.1.2

Acrobat and Reader version 8.x

Version 8 Current Recommended AIP Configuration

Acrobat: 8.0.0 > 8.1.0 > 8.1.1 > 8.1.2 > 8.1.3 > 8.1.6

Acrobat and Reader version 7.x

Note, Adobe Reader 7.1.0 was a Full Installer only; no patch was produced.

The oldest patch shown above for Acrobat Version 7 is "7.1.0". While there were previous patches released between the "7.0.0" original product and the "7.1.0" patch, it is recommended that any current customer deploying version 7 should bypass the interim patches, and step directly to "7.1.0" and beyond.

Version 7 Current recommended AIP Configuration

Acrobat: 7.0.0 > 7.1.0 > 7.1.3 

Reader: 7.1.0 > 7.1.3