Deploy Acrobat Reader DC with Intune

Use Intune to deploy an up to date version of Adobe Acrobat Reader DC using the Win32 app deployment.

One of the first applications that is put on the list to distribute with Intune is Acrobat Reader DC. There are several blogs that describe how to do this, however they all use the default Adobe Acrobat Reader DC Distribution executable. Only installing this executable will get you the 2015 version 2015.07.20033, which is by now (2021) extremely out dated. This article will focus on how to deploy an up to date version of Adobe.

First you still need the default Adobe Acrobat Reader DC Distribution executable, which you can download from https://get.adobe.com/uk/reader/enterprise/ . Select your required operating system, language and version. Once you have downloaded the exe you will need to extract the contents of the exe. You do this by adding the following switches after the exe. Specify your own output location.

.\AcroRdrDC1900820071_nl_NL.exe -sfx_o"C:\InstallFiles\Blog\Extract" -sfx_ne

Next you need to download the latest update from Adobe. Writing this blog this is the September 2021 update, which you can download from https://www.adobe.com/devnet-docs/acrobatetk/tools/ReleaseNotesDC/continuous/dccontinuoussept2021.html Download the Reader update. Make sure to choose correct bit version. In my case I need the AcroRdrDCUpd2100720091.msp file.

Place the download update in the same folder where you extracted the content of the executable. In the same folder you create two files. The first is named install.cmd and the second is called uninstall.cmd

The content of the install.cmd file is:

msiexec /i "%~dp0AcroRead.msi" ALLUSERS=1 /qn TRANSFORMS="AcroRead.mst" /Update "%~dp0AcroRdrDCUpd2100720091.msp" /norestart

Here its important that you reference the correct update file which in this case is AcroRdrDCUpd2100720091.msp.

You can use the Adobe Customization Wizard DC to further customize your Adobe installation . This will generate the mst file which is also referenced in the install.cmd file. I wont to in to detail, there are plenty of blogs which will explain this.

The contents of the uninstall.cmd file is

msiexec /x "%~dp0AcroRead.msi" /q

The content of your Adobe folder should look quite similar like this:

Test you installation by running the install.cmd and the uninstall.cmd files before continuing to the next steps.

You are now ready to put all the contents of your Adobe folder into a Win32 package and distribute it to your clients. First use the Win32 wrapper to combine all the files into a single package. If you need more information on how to do this please read this article.

Source folder: Is the location where all the Adobe files are located
Setup file: in this case it’s setup.exe
Output folder: location where the intunewin file is saved
Catalog folder: choose no

When you have your .intunewin file you can upload this to Intune and start deploying it. I won’t go in to detail but some points to take in to account:

At Program:

Install command: install.cmd
Uninstall command: uninstall.cmd

At Detection Rules use:

Manually configure detection rules and use the Registry Rule type:

Key Path: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\{AC76BA86-7AD7-1043-7B44-AC0F074E4100}
Value Name: DisplayVersion
Detection method: String Comparison
Operator: Equals
Value: 21.007.20091 (or whatever version you install)

Hope this article gives you some more information on how to deploy an up to date version of Adobe Acrobat Reader with Intune.

25 thoughts on “Deploy Acrobat Reader DC with Intune”

Jim says:

19/10/2021 at 19:39

Nice article, Stephan – Thanks! I was able to deploy Adobe successfully in our environment using the info you provided. I did have some trouble with the’install.cmd’ file. In the script you provided, there was an extra .msp” included and a space between “%~ and dp0Acro…msp. Also, when I extracted the Adobe file, the AcroRead.mst file was missing so I had to remove the TRANSFORMS=”AcroRead.mst” part to get it to work.

Reply
1. Stephan says:
  
  20/10/2021 at 08:30
  
  Hi Jim, thanks for your feedback I have adjusted the install.cmd command!
  
  Reply
Naz Momoniat says:

03/11/2021 at 13:51

How does one then use Intune to Apply Updates to Adobe?

Reply
1. Stephan says:
  
  03/11/2021 at 17:08
  
  Hi Naz,
  
  If you want maximal control you should create a new package and use the supersedence feature to roll out a new version of Adobe. Read this article on how to use supersedence otherwise Adobe can update itself if it has the required permissions
  
  I havent looked into deploying specific updates using Intune
  
  Reply
  1. Naz Momoniat says:
    
    04/11/2021 at 00:44
    
    Hi- Thanks for the response – I tried out the above article and it all installs ok, but for some reason Intune doesnt detect the install and It shows as failed. but it lists the app inside Control Panel and Reader DC works fine
    
    Ive been thinking about this today and noticed the supersedence feature so that was going to be my next test – need to tweak the CMDs and give it a go!
    
    Reply
    1. Stephan says:
      
      04/11/2021 at 09:40
      
      Hi Naz, check the registry of the machine where you installed Adobe and make sure that the detection rule matches the version. Since Adobe can update it self and you havent disabled it, it can help to choose ‘Greater then or equal to’ instead of ‘Equals’.
      
      Reply
James Wolstenholm says:

03/12/2021 at 17:57

This is great info. I was working on this yesterday and it appears it needs to have the software already installed (error message indicates it cannot upgrade the product because it isn’t installed). Is that your experience?

Reply
1. Stephan says:
  
  03/12/2021 at 19:32
  
  Hi James, the installation command should first install the ‘old’ version of Adobe and then apply the update. So Adobe doesn’t have to be installed for this to work
  
  msiexec /i “%~dp0AcroRead.msi” ALLUSERS=1 /qn /Update “%~dp0AcroRdrDCUpd2100720091.msp” /norestart
  
  Reply
  1. James Wolstenholm says:
    
    03/12/2021 at 23:50
    
    I figured out the issue. Even though I was selecting to download the 64 bit installer, it’s only downloading the 32 bit installer from the Adobe website so the conflict was between the 32 bit installer and the 64 bit msp. As soon as I realized this, I downloaded the 32 bit MSP and it installed perfectly. Thanks again.
    
    Reply
Patrick says:

08/12/2021 at 19:59

Thank you for this walkthrough!
Got a question and maybe you can answer it, but for some reason the install.cmd and uninstall.cmd will not Install or Uninstall Adobe. Only way it will is if I change the “/qn” to “/passive”

Any ideas why that would be? Never had that issue before making an installer run as quiet…

Reply
1. Stephan says:
  
  15/12/2021 at 16:09
  
  Hi Patrick, sorry for the late response. If you just run the install.cmd file without admin permissions then the installation will only work if you use /passive. If you run the install.cmd as an admin you can use the /qn.
  
  Reply
  1. Patrick says:
    
    16/12/2021 at 14:40
    
    Thank you very much Stephan! Should have thought about that
    
    Reply
YW says:

05/01/2022 at 18:44

I was able to upgrade from older version or fresh install but always getting “Acrobat Reader DC installation failed” notification. The InTuneManagmentExtension.log shows

[Win32App] Checked reg path: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\{AC76BA86-7AD7-1043-7B44-AC0F074E4100}, name: DisplayVersion, operator: 1, type: 3, value: 21.007.20099 , result of applicationDetected: False

[Win32App] Exitcode is defined as success but it actually failed according to detection result

Reply
1. Stephan says:
  
  05/01/2022 at 20:30
  
  Hi YW, did you verify that the version of Acrobat is the same as 21.007.20099? I’d the values don’t match the installation will show up as failed. It also can happen that DC auto updates to a newer version which will result in a failed state.
  
  You can verify it in the registry :
  
  HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\{AC76BA86-7AD7-1043-7B44-AC0F074E4100}
  
  Reply
Johnathon says:

19/11/2022 at 07:00

Nice article Stephan,

I also wrestled with this for ages. This site has the process I’m using and runs through step by step with images(there are quite a few steps but once youve done it once or twice it only take a few minutes to build the updated package).

http://itwalkthroughs.com/knowledge-base/deploy-adobe-acrobat-pro-updates-via-intune/

Reply
1. Stephan says:
  
  19/11/2022 at 08:53
  
  Hi Johnathon, thank you.
  The article you shared is indeed a good one to deploy additional updates. Thanks for sharing
  
  Reply
Pablo Destefanis says:

18/02/2023 at 00:46

I have a beer for you. Thank you!

Reply
Peter says:

19/04/2023 at 11:11

Hi All

Where do I download a 64 bit version of Adobe reader because i get this error:

Device architecture (e.g. x86/amd64) is not applicable for the application.

Reply
1. Stephan says:
  
  19/04/2023 at 12:29
  
  There are 2 sections one for x86 and one for 64-bit
  
  Reply
Keith Andrews says:

14/08/2023 at 19:46

Hi Stephan!

Thanks for the information you’ve provided. I tried to run the install.cmd file from the folder, but the way my environment is setup, it is not allowing UNC paths, and it defaults to the Windows directory. The installer then just times out and the command prompt closes. Do you have any advice for this issue?

Thanks again!
Keith

Reply
1. Stephan says:
  
  17/08/2023 at 09:14
  
  Hi Keith, Im not sure what you are trying, can you share your install.cmd?
  
  Reply
Keith Andrews says:

15/08/2023 at 14:38

I am having an issue with the install.cmd file. I can get everything to work if I don’t include the TRANSFORM reference, or the /Update reference. Once I add those elements in, the install.cmd file will not work. Is there something else I should be trying in order to get the installer to work with the latest update .msp file? Thank you!

Reply
1. Stephan says:
  
  17/08/2023 at 09:14
  
  Hi Keith, you could use this in your install.cmd to enable logging
  
  msiexec /i “%~dp0AcroRead.msi” TRANSFORMS=”AcroRead.mst” /Update “%~dp0AcroRdrDCUpd2300320269.msp” /q /L*v c:\acrobat.log
  
  Reply
Aly says:

24/09/2023 at 04:04

I am getting this status install pending “Device must be rebooted to complete installation of the application” but I can see the Adobe Acrobat DC updates are getting installed so how to get rid of this issue?

Reply
1. Stephan says:
  
  25/09/2023 at 15:46
  
  Did you set the “Device restart behavior” when you added the win32 in step 2 where you configure the installation parameters?
  
  Reply