In “5 Things to Think About Before Deploying Adobe Reader or Acrobat X” I mentioned that…
Prior to version X, Adobe did not support a configuration where both Reader and Acrobat are installed on the same system; this is now a supported configuration. If you want to deploy this way, you’ll want to decide which product is the default for viewing PDF files before you deploy them both.
To help clarify that, I’d like to explain exactly how to do this.
When you are configuring your install of Acrobat X using the Customization Wizard, the “Installation Options” panel asks you to select a “Default viewer for PDF files”. When you let the installer “decide which product will be the default”, nothing is saved in the customized build and the installer will show a checkbox (checked by default) for taking ownership of PDF files. If instead you choose the second option i.e. “Make Acrobat the default PDF viewer”, no option is shown to change the ownership and Acrobat will take ownership of PDF files.
So if Reader X is already present on the system and then Acrobat is installed, it will take ownership silently without showing the checkbox to change/retain ownership with the original product i.e. Reader X in this case.
Similarly when configuring Reader X using Customization Wizard, the “Installation Option” pane shows two options i.e. let “Installer decide which product will be default” and “Make Reader the default PDF viewer”. If you choose the former, the Reader X installer will show a checkbox (checked by default) for taking ownership of PDF files. However if you choose to “make Reader the default PDF viewer”, no checkbox is shown to change ownership and Reader X will be made the default viewer of PDF files.
If you want your users to have both Acrobat X & Reader X on a machine and want to keep one of these as default for PDF files and workflows, then customize that application installer using Customization Wizard and choose the option to make the application as default PDF viewer and deploy on users machine.
I hope this helps.
There is a bug in the Customization Wizard that will not allow you to save the “Make Reader the default PDF viewer” in the transform file. I just experienced this, and then I found this post on the forum:
http://forums.adobe.com/thread/766526
Please fix this ASAP. We would like to utilize this feature. If this is not the correct place to report this bug, please email me the information about whom I should submit this bug to.
Take a look at my other article here…
http://blogs.adobe.com/pdfitmatters/2011/03/installing-acrobat-x-and-reader-x-on-the-same-machine.html
J-
Install Reader X first, then Acrobat 7, then right-click on a PDF file and select “Open With” and then choose Reader X and make that the default.
This configuration needs to be automated because we deploy Acrobat silently to 100s of computers, and it is not practical to manually do this for each installation.
Regardless of the practicality, the new method that you describe still doesn’t work because the Customization Wizard has a bug that prevents me from saving the choice in the transform file for the Reader installation. Also, as I mentioned in your other article, enterprise management of Adobe Acrobat is more cumbersome now because we cannot choose Reader as the default setting when creating a transform for Acrobat.
Hello,
I’ve found this post after deploying Adobe Acrobat X to machines where Adobe Reader X was preinstalled.
After installing Adobe Acrobat X, is the viewer for PDF files (and is sloooow than Reader).
We want to have Reader as the default viewer (because is preinstalled and because is faster). The users who need Acrobat for creating forms, PDF files, etc. must be using Reader too.
Can you add the option for “Make Reader the default PDF viewer” when creating a transform for Acrobat? (as before)
Thanks.
I agree. Adobe needs to add the option “Make Reader the default PDF Viewer” when creating an Acrobat transform….or shall I say put that option back.
I cannot make any comments at all on this computer-the pop-
up says: something is wrong with you acrobat reader. Help
That doesn’t sound like an Adobe error message.
Has a solution been found for this? We are in the same boat as Vuong. We use automation to push out Acrobat to only those who need it. Since all computers already have Reader installed on them, it is not practical to have to push out an Acrobat transform and a Reader transform in order to do an Acrobat install. We really need the option for “Make Reader the default PDF viewer” returned to the Customization Wizard.