Slipstream Adobe Acrobat 9 updates

Want to Slipstream Adobe Acrobat 9 updates?
What you'll need: Patches and the installation files
Overview: Create network install point, upgrade network install point, install from network install point.

I copied the installation files to c:\Acro9Std, saved the update files (9.1, 9.1.1, 9.1.2, 9.1.3, 9.2.0, 9.3.0, 9.3.2, 9.3.3, 9.4) to c:\Acro9Up, and created the network install folder c:\Acro94Img.

1) Run the administrative install using the installation files - run msiexec.exe /a "c:\Acro9Std\Adobe Acrobat 9 Standard\AcroStan.msi"
2) Choose the network installation folder (c:\Acro94Img)
3) Upgrade the administrative image using the image msi - run msiexec /a c:\Acro94Img\acrostan.msi /update c:\Acro9Up\AcroProStdUpd910_T1T2_incr.msp;c:\Acro9Up\AcrobatUpd911_all_incr.msp;c:\Acro9Up\AcrobatUpd912_all_incr.msp;c:\Acro9Up\AcrobatUpd913_all_incr.msp;c:\Acro9Up\AcrobatUpd920_all_incr.msp;c:\Acro9Up\AcrobatUpd930_all_incr.msp;c:\Acro9Up\AcrobatUpd940_all_incr.msp
4) Choose the network installation folder (c:\Acro94Img)
5) Install from the network installation folder

Note: If you need to run a repair on Adobe Acrobat 9, these files need to be available. Adobe Acrobat 9 will now see these files as the installation media and will not repair using the original media.

If you do not want to create a network installation point, you can use the following command to install Adobe Acrobat 9:
msiexec.exe /i "c:\Acro9Std\Adobe Acrobat 9 Standard\acrostan.msi /update c:\Acro9Up\AcroProStdUpd910_T1T2_incr.msp;c:\Acro9Up\AcrobatUpd911_all_incr.msp;c:\Acro9Up\AcrobatUpd912_all_incr.msp;c:\Acro9Up\AcrobatUpd913_all_incr.msp;c:\Acro9Up\AcrobatUpd920_all_incr.msp;c:\Acro9Up\AcrobatUpd930_all_incr.msp;c:\Acro9Up\AcrobatUpd940_all_incr.msp
(if your path to the updates includes spaces, put quotes around the first update through the last update msp -Microsoft Patch- file)

Return Air problems

On the return leg of a vacation trip, the flight was delayed. At the first delay, the flight crew said they were experiencing maintenance delays. A warning light was on, they tried a fix, and were waiting to see if the light would turn off so they could sign-off on paperwork and take off. Then, it was announced the fix did not work. Next, the flight crew announced they were going to completely power down the plane, including the lights, and power back up to reboot the computer. Sarcastically, I hoped they weren't running Windows, thought they should try downloading updates or uninstalling any recently applied updates. The flight was deplaned (off-boarded?), we were told the warning system was inoperative, they were to try working on connections, restarting the computers again, more testing, and let us know within an hour. I guessed a recently passed passenger's rights bill might have affected how they handled it (de-boarding the plane as opposed to sitting on the plane for another hour).

The flight crew or attendants tried to reroute as many people with connecting flights as possible. They spoke of the option of vouchers for hotels at both ends of the trip, rescheduling flights, or catching the later flight. I was told that although the expressed the possibility of catching the later flight, that flight had 7 open seats but 10 on the waiting list. They ended up sending a plane across from Newark, maintaining the same flight number, and this resolution suited me. As an apology or thank you, we received coupons for a discounted future flight, a "premium beverage", and we received free satellite programming (movies) for the flight.

I would not say I was upset and felt they did their best to help us. It was one of those situations where I felt getting upset, annoyed, or off-put would not help and would just make things worse for myself, the other passengers, and the airline's employees. Others did not feel this way, and I don't know if I would have felt the same had this been the beginning of my trip, not the end. I felt the airline handled themselves professionally and the coupons were nice, but the behavior of some was embarrassing. I don't know the accuracy of the information I received, but I tried to transcribe it above accurately. In other words, I imagine that the maintenance passed the information to the pilots (perhaps indirectly) who passed the information on to the flight crew (kind of like the message passing game). This is the first time I've experienced this kind of delay, and I was interested in capturing it.

VirtualPC Virtual Network Adapters in Windows (Server 2008)

I am using a set of Microsoft VHDs to demo their software (specifically Microsoft Office Communication Server 2007 R2), and I wondered why my Local Area Connection was around Local Area Connection 24 and my network card was Microsoft Virtual Machine Bus Network 15. My guess is that Microsoft passed these VHDs around for review before release, so it stored past local area connections and network adapters. The Virtual Machines had a startup script called startup.cmd that referenced a Local Area Connection that wasn't the current one. I changed the number to match mine, then decided to remove the old adapters through the registry. Here's what I did (take caution and perform backups before editing the registry):

Under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\Current Version\Network Cards\, network cards are enumerated by number. The Description subkey lists the name of the adapter and the ServiceName subkey lists the Service GUID. I noted the ServiceName and deleted the keys.

For Windows Vista/Server 2008 and above, the keys under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Microsoft\Windows NT\Current Version\NetworkList\Profiles represent the networks. I deleted all but the network I was interested in (the domain). The network names are listed under Description and ProfileName. Interestingly, one of the networks was corp.microsoft.com.

Under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\Current Control Set\Control\Network\{4D36E972-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}, network connections are listed (like Local Area Connection n) by GUID with their names under Connection\Name. I deleted all the GUIDs for the connections I didn't want.

Under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\Current Control Set\Control\Network\{4D36E972-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}\Description, adapters are enumeratec and used the numbers are listed under the data of the REG_MULTI_SZ key. I cleared the data for Microsoft Virtual Machine Bus Network Adapter and Microsoft VMBus Network Adapter.

Under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\Current Control Set\Services are listed the the GUIDs representing the network cards from the ...Network Cards subkeys (ServiceName). I deleted the corresponding GUIDs from the Network Cards.

Under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\Current Control Set\Services\Tcpip\Adapters are listed GUIDs representing adapters. I deleted the unwanted keys. The same is true for HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\Current Control Set\Services\Tcpip\Interfaces. I left HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\Current Control Set\Services\Tcpip6\Parameters\Interfaces alone.

I found these Microsoft Knowledge Base articles, but they apply to NT 3.5 - 4.0:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/146333
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/147797

Slipstream Adobe Acrobat 8 updates

Want to Slipstream Adobe Acrobat 8 updates?
What you'll need: Adobe Customization Wizard 8 (http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=3564), Patches, the installation files

Download and the patches to a patch folder
Copy the Adobe Acrobat 8 installation files to a folder (an install source folder)
Install and run the Adobe Customization Wizard 8
Click File -> Open Package, and point it to the folder containing the msi file, example c:\Acro8StdCD\Adobe Acrobat 8 Standard\acrostan.msi
Make any customizations to the installation process
Click Transform -> Generate Transform..., create a folder to contain the administrative installation point, and name the file, for example c:\Acro8Std\acrostan.mst
Run msiexec /a "c:\Acro8StdCD\Adobe Acrobat 8 Standard\acrostan.msi"
Click Next, click Change, select the admin install point, click OK, and click Install. Click Finish.
For each update and in order (8.1.0, 8.1.1, 8.1.2, 8.1.3, 8.1.6, etc), run the following msiexec /a c:\Acro8Std\acrostan.msi /p C:\patch\AcrobatUpd810_efgj_incr.msp
Click Next, Install, Finish
When you're done, run msiexec.exe /i "C:\Acro8Std\acrostan.msi" TRANSFORM="C:\Acro8Std\acrostan.mst" on the target workstations
Since you're using a mst file, this method doesn't help as a group policy software installation method. Using the Save package feature of the Adobe Customization Wizard might help with group policy software installations. I haven't tried to see what it can do.

Update: for installation repairs, Adobe Acrobat looks for the originally installed msi/image. If you update the network installation location, an installation that used the older files will not recognize the updated files. To maintain repair functionality, you'd either need to maintain separate install images, copy the files locally, or resort to uninstall/reinstall instead of repair.