How to Upgrade to Adobe Reader X and delete all older versions

In a small to medium environment (< 500 pc’s), it’s not a really tough job to keep all pc’s up to date with the latest version of Adobe Reader. A couple of pc’s that might report problems, can be cured manually.

However, when you have to deal with Adobe Reader updates in a large environment (> 1000 pc’s), it’s almost impossible to keep all your computers up-to-date every day. Especially with all the major, minor and quarterly updates; when you finally got that last pc updated, the next Adobe update just got released Winking smile

In this situation, you may consider using a global install-uninstall script that just removes all older versions of Adobe and installs the latest. You don’t have to worry about pc’s running 7.1, 8.1.0 or 9.2.1, because every will pc will be upgraded to 10.3.1 just fine.

Here’s an example of a script that uninstalls nearly all Adobe Reader versions:

REM  Acrobat Reader 3.01 Silent Uninstall 
C:\WINDOWS\uninst.exe -a -fC:\Acrobat3\Reader\DeIsL1.isu 
REM  Acrobat Reader 4.x Uninstall
C:\WINDOWS\IsUninst.exe -a -f"C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Acrobat 4.0\NT\Uninst.isu" -c"C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Acrobat 4.0\NT\Uninst.dll" 
REM  Acrobat Reader 5.x Uninstall
C:\WINDOWS\ISUNINST.EXE -a -f"C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Acrobat 5.0\NT\Uninst.isu" -c"C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Acrobat 5.0\NT\Uninst.dll" 
REM  Acrobat Reader 6.0 and 6.0.1 Silent Uninstall 
MsiExec.exe /qn /norestart /x {AC76BA86-7AD7-1033-7B44-000000000001} MsiExec.exe /qn /norestart /x {AC76BA86-7AD7-1033-7B44-A00000000001} 
REM Acrobat Reader 6.0.1 - Silent Uninstall 
MsiExec.exe /qn /norestart /x {1F1C2DFC-2D24-3E06-BCB8-725134ADF989} 
REM Acrobat Reader 6.0.2 Upgrade - Silent Uninstall 
MsiExec.exe /qn /norestart /x {AC76BA86-0000-0000-0000-6028747ADE01} 
REM Acrobat Reader 6.0.3 Upgrade - Silent Uninstall 
MsiExec.exe /qn /norestart /x {AC76BA86-0000-7EC8-7489-000000000603} 
REM Acrobat Reader 6.0.4 Upgrade - Silent Uninstall 
MsiExec.exe /qn /norestart /x {AC76BA86-0000-7EC8-7489-000000000604} 
REM Acrobat Reader 6.0.5 Upgrade - Silent Uninstall 
MsiExec.exe /qn /norestart /x {AC76BA86-0000-7EC8-7489-000000000605} 
REM Acrobat Reader 6.0.6 Upgrade - Silent Uninstall 
MsiExec.exe /qn /norestart /x {AC76BA86-0000-7EC8-7489-000000000606} 
REM Acrobat Reader 7.0.5 - Silent Uninstall 
MsiExec.exe /qn /norestart /x {AC76BA86-7AD7-1033-7B44-A70500000002} 
REM Acrobat Reader 7.0.7 - Silent Uninstall 
MsiExec.exe /qn /norestart /x {AC76BA86-7AD7-1033-7B44-A70700000002} 
REM Acrobat Reader 7.0.8 - Silent Uninstall 
MsiExec.exe /qn /norestart /x {AC76BA86-7AD7-1033-7B44-A70800000002} 
REM Acrobat Reader 7.0.9 - Silent Uninstall 
MsiExec.exe /qn /norestart /x {AC76BA86-7AD7-1033-7B44-A70900000002} 
REM Acrobat Reader 7.1.x - Silent Uninstall 
MsiExec.exe /qn /norestart /x {AC76BA86-7AD7-1033-7B44-A71000000002} 
REM Acrobat Reader 8.0 - Silent Uninstall 
MsiExec.exe /qn /norestart /x {AC76BA86-7AD7-1033-7B44-A80000000002} 
REM Acrobat Reader 8.1.x - Silent Uninstall 
MsiExec.exe /qn /norestart /x {AC76BA86-7AD7-1033-7B44-A81000000003} 
REM Acrobat Reader 8.1.1 - Silent Uninstall 
MsiExec.exe /qn /norestart /x {AC76BA86-7AD7-1033-7B44-A81100000003} 
REM Acrobat Reader 8.1.2 - Silent Uninstall 
MsiExec.exe /qn /norestart /x {AC76BA86-7AD7-1033-7B44-A81200000003} 
REM Acrobat Reader 8.1.2 Security Update 1 - Silent Uninstall (uninstall version 8.1.2 first) 
MsiExec.exe /qn /norestart /x {6846389C-BAC0-4374-808E-B120F86AF5D7} 
REM Acrobat Reader 8.1.3, 8.1.4 and 8.1.6 - Silent Uninstall 
MsiExec.exe /qn /norestart /x {AC76BA86-7AD7-1033-7B44-A81300000003} 
REM Acrobat Reader 9.1.0 - Silent Uninstall 
MsiExec.exe /qn /norestart /x {AC76BA86-7AD7-1033-7B44-A91000000001} 
REM Acrobat Reader 9.2.0 - Silent Uninstall 
MsiExec.exe /qn /norestart /x {AC76BA86-7AD7-1033-7B44-A92000000001} 
REM Acrobat Reader 9.3.x - Silent Uninstall 
MsiExec.exe /qn /norestart /x {AC76BA86-7AD7-1033-7B44-A93000000001} 
REM Acrobat Reader 9.4.0 - Silent Uninstall 
MsiExec.exe /qn /norestart /x {AC76BA86-7AD7-1033-7B44-A94000000001} 

After uninstalling, make sure you install the latest Adobe Reader. You can create a custom installation, using the Adobe Customization Wizard, which is highly recommended. This tool enables you, for example, to turn off automatic updates, or trust specific network locations.

Useful additions to the (un)install script could be to end all acrord32.exe processes before you uninstall, since a running acrord32.exe process will let your uninstallation fail. An example is to use taskkill /IM AcroRd32.exe /F but there are plenty of alternatives, like pskill (from sysinternals suite).

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Ren

Hi can you also provide us the script for adobe version 10 and 11? Thank you

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