Adobe reader 9.2 out

[olig23]

I do mean the web based version from renlearn.

 

It will not work on a PC without adobe reader installed. Apparently, if Renaissance Learning get enough complaints about it, they MAY look into getting it to work with Foxit.

 

Hi,

 

I work in Tech support for Renaissance Learning and i thought I should explain a little regarding the Foxit/Adobe Reader problem.

 

It is not that Renaissance Place does not work with Foxit as such, it is able to view reports and other aspects of the site with no issue however, there is a check that occurs at the begging of any AR quiz. This essentially is there to stop pupils going through a quiz and not being able to view their results as that would be a larger issue for teacher than we currently face now.

 

The solution we have currently is to have the site check for the active-x component that runs in IE before any quiz is taken to ensure the ability to view the reports exists. We are fully aware of the problems with users using open source PDF viewers and we are keen to get the issue resolved however the final decision lies with our R&D department in the US.

 

If any of you guys are able to give us any information on why installing Adobe reader is a problem for a school's network then this might help us make a more pressing case for the problem to be resolved and it would be greatly appreciated.

 

Also, if any of you have any thoughts on a way to use Foxit while having the Adobe Reader Active X running this would also fix the issue.

 

Oli

[cookie_monster]

If any of you guys are able to give us any information on why installing Adobe reader is a problem for a school's network then this might help us make a more pressing case for the problem to be resolved and it would be greatly appreciated.

 

As some have stated Adobe Reader has improved of late BUT, it's big 35Mb (Foxit is about 2Mb) it's buggy and frequently targeted by virus writers so you have to stay on top of the frequent security patches some of which require a reboot. It's also slow compared to Foxit in my opinion.

Foxit in comparison rolls out very quickly takes mins to prepare the msi (whereas Adobe takes some faffing with mst files and so on) and doesn't require frequent security updates.

[PiqueABoo]

it's to do with redirecting Application Data.

 

Yes that was the exact problem I hit and had to swiftly reverse out of around a year ago.

 

I included roaming profiles in my whinge not because I hit a problem (I'd already given up because of the FR issue), but simply because Adobe say use with roaming profiles is not supported.

 

To clarify: Use with RPs might work now, but next month's patch may break it at which point Adobe could easily turn round and say "Well we did warn you in the release note...".

Edited October 16, 2009 by PiqueABoo
To clarify

[pritchardavid]

Same here.

 

Foxit Software - Foxit Reader 3.0 for Windows

 

 

same here too, in fact we had problems deploying adobe 9 from 7, kept comings when starting, no such problems with foxit reader

[Mr.Ben]

I had plenty of problem with Reader when it was deployed too. It magicially repaired itself after first use, breaking File associations and would then no longer open up in an IE window. Via a shortcut it always repaired itself (which took 2 or 3 mins).

 

After coming across the adobe support forums where other people had the same problems (that were not being answered) I gave up, now I'd recommend FoxIt to anyone for the reasons above, especially deployment.

 

EDIT: I also use redirection on Appdata, and to be honest Adobe should be supporting this in an enterprise environment

[AngryTechnician]

The redirection bug happens specifically when the AppData folder is redirected to a UNC path (though not always, curiously). I know this problem quite intimately because we had a site licence for Adobe Acrobat in my last school and had therefore paid for support from Adobe. We were one of the first organisations to raise a support case with Adobe, certainly in the UK; when I called it had not even been confirmed as a known issue as far as the UK helpdesk was concerned. 6 months went by before they finally admitted they couldn't fix the problem, and they dropped support for folder redirection. The most galling part was that they did officially support it until then, and had promised a proper fix in 9.1.

 

The problem is rooted in some dodgy code in Reader that expects the path to AppData to start with a drive letter and not a \. If you redirect to a mapped drive, it works fine (though doing redirection in that way has it's own pitfalls). Latest version of Premiere Elements has the same bug, FYI.

[knightnets]

It seems that Linguascope Online requires AR too, I am currently using Foxit, have put on AR6 for Accelerated Reading, but now we have two resources that require it, I am considering putting on 9.2, has anyone found out if the prob is fixed or do we still have to wait until 2010.

[cookie_monster]

It seems that Linguascope Online requires AR too, I am currently using Foxit, have put on AR6 for Accelerated Reading, but now we have two resources that require it, I am considering putting on 9.2, has anyone found out if the prob is fixed or do we still have to wait until 2010.

 

 

 

Our languages dept use linguascope and linguastars and they've never reported issues and we use Foxit. What exactly doesn't work?

[soveryapt]

We changed Adobe Reader for Foxit I'm just sick of the updates being so large and frequent.

 

That makes 2 of us. Switched a while back, so easy to deploy and keep up to date, and (most importantly) IT WORKS!! lol ..

 

Adobe do their paid software really well, just a shame their free bits like reader leave a little to be desired at times!

 

[DMcCoy]

Adobe reader will crash on Vista if you are using mandatory/roaming profiles and do not have an Appdata\Locallow folder

 

To stop it creating an Organizer90 file on the desktop you also need a AppData\Local\Adobe\Acrobat\9.0 folder.

[cookie_monster]

Adobe reader will crash on Vista if you are using mandatory/roaming profiles and do not have an Appdata\Locallow folder

 

To stop it creating an Organizer90 file on the desktop you also need a AppData\Local\Adobe\Acrobat\9.0 folder.

 

 

 

So is this a Vista and above issue then? I never noticed a problem when we used Adobe Reader and we've used redirected profiles for a while now. Actually we stopped at 8.1.2 so we might not of encountered the issue.

[DMcCoy]

So is this a Vista and above issue then? I never noticed a problem when we used Adobe Reader and we've used redirected profiles for a while now. Actually we stopped at 8.1.2 so we might not of encountered the issue.

 

Vista bug, possibly 7. A locallow folder is not created by windows when the user logs in.

 

Acrobat handles this by crashing in the same manner as the previous redirection bug, along with crashing IE when visiting a pdf.

[cookie_monster]

Vista bug, possibly 7. A locallow folder is not created by windows when the user logs in.

 

Acrobat handles this by crashing in the same manner as the previous redirection bug, along with crashing IE when visiting a pdf.

 

 

How graceful