Rolling out Adobe Suite 6 Master Collection to 200 windows 7 PC's

[kennysarmy]

We have purchased a 250 user licence for Adobe Suite 6 Master Collection and I plan to deploy this out in the summer to 200 PC's.

 

My initial thought was to use Adobe Application Manager Enterprise Edition to create a custom packages for our roll out to our freshly imaged via WDS Windows 7 64bit computers. However on reading the manual you cannot just run the MSI AAMMEE creates, you have to roll it out using SCCM - which we don't have and I am running short of time to set-up/test/train myself etc before the Summer term.

 

With myself and two technicians I don't see it a problem time wise to re-image the 200 PC's using WDS and then do manual installs of Adobe 6 after...

 

However, would I be better to just include the Adobe Suite 6 on the master image....and are there any pitfalls to watch out for using this method?

 

Will every user be asked to register the software and things like that???

 

Cheers for any comments/feedback

[Chris-W-]

I haven't yet tried with CS6, but I've used a similar method with CS5.5 by installing onto a master image and then deploying via WDS. As far as I can tell, once the computers are imaged, you'll need to run any one of the programs within the Master Suite on an admin account which will allow the software to register, and then it should remain registered for all users and not ask each time a new new user logs on.

[Arthur]

are there any pitfalls to watch out for using this method?

Have you seen this?

 

http://blogs.adobe.com/oobe/2012/05/aamee-3-0-for-cs6-available-now-removes-puffer-fishes.html

 

If you do a manual install of CS6 on a system the following will happen: An Adobe ID request will come up. Your end users HAVE to login with an Adobe ID account or they can’t use the software. Oh, that will be popular. Wait, the systems aren’t online or behind a secure firewall? Won’t work. Also, the systems HAVE to activate on a regular basis. Once again, not connected to the internet or behind an overly secure firewall? Won’t work. Now maybe you do imaging for your organization. You do an install on one base system. Login in with an Adobe ID and serialize it. Looks fine. Then you clone it to another system. Won’t work. There is now a relationship between the machine and the licensing in CS6. Let’s say you used a third party packaging tool like the venerable JAMF Composer tool. Guess what? Won’t work. No place within Composer to validate the Adobe ID or the online serial number validation.

 

Okay, so how well does AAMEE 3.0 reduce the pain of this puffer fish? First, using AAMEE 3.0 makes it so you only have to create/login with one Adobe ID on behalf of your organization therefore negating the need for your end users to have an Adobe ID at all or even know what one is. Second, the serial number is validated and activated within AAMEE 3.0. The end user’s system does not have to activate because you have already done it using AAMEE. Third and final, if you are imaging then AAMEE 3.0 has a special unserialized/trial workflow and a new serialization executable that can be used to serialize once the image has been applied to the machine.

[Bezwick]

I have just deployed Adobe Production Studio 6 using AAMEE 3 and group policies, also a couple of silent install batch files. All of which worked without incident, or at least none of our staff or students have mentioned any problems so far.

 

We did however have a problem if we used WDS and had it installed in the image, it lost it registration settings but if you just deploy it using GPO's there is no problem.

Edited May 29, 2012 by Bezwick

[kennysarmy]

Yes Arthur I had read that

[Arthur]

We did however have a problem if we used WDS and had it installed in the image, it lost it registration settings.

Even after doing what Adobe recommend above? If so, that's rubbish!

[kennysarmy]

I have just deployed Adobe Production Studio 6 using AAMEE 3 and group policies, also a couple of silent install batch files. All of which worked without incident, or at least none of our staff or students have mentioned any problems so far.

 

We did however have a problem if we used WDS and had it installed in the image, it lost it registration settings but if you just deploy it using GPO's there is no problem.

 

Thanks....

So there may be a solution....

 

If you read here however:

Adobe CS5 Enterprise Deployment Tool now available « Adobe Education Technologies

Post By ChristophM - 12:49 PM on July 7, 2010 Reply

 

He seemed to have issues rolling out via GPO so I am very interested to know your setup/solution...

 

I am just printing off the AAMEE 3.0 notes to have a read through before I tackle the package creation...

 

I am sure it would benefit others if you were happy to share your GPO settings and batch file scripts

[Bezwick]

Even after doing what Adobe recommend above? If so, that's rubbish!

 

To be honest, i didnt bother with it, it works when deployed as an MSi, WDS automates the whole installation so i had no need to play around with it. So it may work, its not worth my time though as it would be far more hassle creating new images than deploying the msi.

 

Cheers

[Bezwick]

To be honest i never even read the instructions just ran the AAMEE wizard and used ot to creat a 64bit network share. Then went into active directory and applied it to the room software installation GPO.

A couple of machines needed it installed but not every machine in that class so i ran a silent install from the command line.

 

msiexec /i "\\server\Adobe Production CS6\Adobe Production Premium CS6\Build\adobe production premium cs6.msi" /qn

 

i made it into a batch file with a pause command at the end so i could see when it finished installing. It was realatively painless.

[kennysarmy]

I recently put a post on one of the adobe blogs:

 

 

By saransh katariya - 5:24 AM on May 30, 2012 Reply

 

 

Hi Jeff,

 

If you create disk images and duplicate to the PC’s, the ideal way for you should be –

 

1. Create a trial package using AAMEE. As you have mentioned that the machines in your organization are 64 bit windows machines, remember to select 64 bit option on welcome screen while creating your package. If any of your machines are 32 bit then you must create a different package for 32 bit machines. A package created for 64 bit machine should not be deployed on 32 bit machines.

 

2. Deploy the trial package to all the machines.

 

3. Create a serialization executable using AAMEE. Run this executable on all the machines where trial package was deployed. This will serialize the product. Remember to run the serialization executable to all the machines after deploying the trial package.(Do not run it on the image itself).

 

Thanks,

Saransh Katariya | Member of technical staff | Adobe Systems

 

 

 

By saransh katariya - 5:49 AM on May 30, 2012 Reply

 

 

hi Jeff,

 

Just a small clarification for the second point above. When I asked you to deploy the trial package, I meant to deploy the trial package on a machine and create an image of it. Then use this image to roll out on other machines.

 

Thanks,

Saransh Katariya | Member of technical staff | Adobe Systems

[James_C]

I haven't yet tried with CS6, but I've used a similar method with CS5.5 by installing onto a master image and then deploying via WDS. As far as I can tell, once the computers are imaged, you'll need to run any one of the programs within the Master Suite on an admin account which will allow the software to register, and then it should remain registered for all users and not ask each time a new new user logs on.

 

I have just deployed CS6 with it installed on the master image (not my prefered way but dont have time to test alternate) and like you said you have to just run it once with the local admin account and it will then work for all users. Fun thing though you have to use the Local Administrator account, it will not work for another account which is a member of the local admin group, which is slowing down my deployment on 250 student laptops as I have to muck around with another logon step just to complete the whole deployment process. I am going to testbed other deploy options early next year, such as AAMME MSI package deployed with SCCM.

 

Cheers

[sztiv]

Hi Saransh

 

I have been reading posts on edugeek in relation to CS6 deployment on Windows 7 and came across your post about how the trial package of CS6 should be installed on the reference machine from which the Windows 7 image for WDS will be created. Following deployment of the image to target computers a serialization executable created using AAMEE should be run. This makes perfect sense and I will do this for our student image that will be deployed to our "physical" PCs.

 

However, we have 60 zero-client devices that connect to VMware View virtual desktops. Can you advise on how we should install CS6 to our Gold image? I don't believe that the method above would work as the pool of virtual desktops within the View environment are clones of the Gold image.

 

Kind regards

 

Steve

[timtom]

I'm surprised you need SCCM to deploy an MSI generated through the AAMEE? I use SCCM to deploy our msi created that way now but in early trials I just used AD and I'm fairly sure from memory that worked! I'm against putting too much stuff on the golden image.. what happens when you want to deploy CS7 or you don't have enough licenses for all your workstations?

[kennysarmy]

I am now re-visiting this to create an updated install point as the Adobe Camera Raw and other things have been updated by Adobe and I initially set our install to not be upgradeable (tying to keep it stable, which to be fair it has been).

 

On reviewing the installation for Adobe Help my notes say:

 

"InstallAdobeHelp.exe appVersion=4.0.244 appId=chc pubId=4875E02D9FB21EE389F73B8D1702B320485DF8CE.1 installerArg1=-silent installerArg2=-eulaAccepted installerArg3=-programMenu installerArg4=AdobeHelp.air"

 

This website has the same line Blog: Silent Deploy Adobe Creative Suite CS 6.0 Premium | ITNinja

 

I just wondered what the line:

pubId=4875E02D9FB21EE389F73B8D1702B320485DF8CE.1

 

means and if it ever requires changing or it is linked to the EXE?