How to disable Adobe automatic updates via Active Directory

*SYMPTOM*

• Adobe's automatic software updates routinely paralyze my companies' LAN.
  
• The number of client computers is too huge to manually disable the updates.
• A temporal command prompt screen at log on makes my users confused, so I can't let batch scripts run as a log on scripts.
  

*RESOLUTION*

• Disable automatic updates of Adobe Reader and Adobe Acrobat via ADM template (, Active Directory Group Policy).

1. Create a ADM template file.

DisableAutomaticUpdates_Adobe.adm

CLASS MACHINE

CATEGORY "DisableAutomaticUpdates"
POLICY "AcrobatReader7.0"
KEYNAME "SOFTWARE\Adobe\Acrobat Reader\7.0\FeatureLockdown"
VALUENAME "bUpdater"
VALUEON NUMERIC 0
END POLICY
END CATEGORY

CATEGORY "DisableAutomaticUpdates"
POLICY "AdobeAcrobat7.0"
KEYNAME "SOFTWARE\Adobe\Adobe Acrobat\7.0\FeatureLockdown"
VALUENAME "bUpdater"
VALUEON NUMERIC 0
END POLICY
END CATEGORY


CATEGORY "DisableAutomaticUpdates"
POLICY "AcrobatReader8.0"
KEYNAME "SOFTWARE\Policies\Adobe\Acrobat Reader\8.0\FeatureLockdown"
VALUENAME "bUpdater"
VALUEON NUMERIC 0
END POLICY
END CATEGORY


CATEGORY "DisableAutomaticUpdates"
POLICY "AdobeAcrobat8.0"
KEYNAME "SOFTWARE\Policies\Adobe\Adobe Acrobat\8.0\FeatureLockdown"
VALUENAME "bUpdater"
VALUEON NUMERIC 0
END POLICY
END CATEGORY


CATEGORY "DisableAutomaticUpdates"
POLICY "AcrobatReader9.0"
KEYNAME "SOFTWARE\Policies\Adobe\Acrobat Reader\9.0\FeatureLockdown"
VALUENAME "bUpdater"
VALUEON NUMERIC 0
END POLICY
END CATEGORY


CATEGORY "DisableAutomaticUpdates"
POLICY "AdobeAcrobat9.0"
KEYNAME "SOFTWARE\Policies\Adobe\Adobe Acrobat\9.0\FeatureLockdown"
VALUENAME "bUpdater"
VALUEON NUMERIC 0
END POLICY
END CATEGORY

2. Import ADM template file to Group Policy Object(GPO).

Following article will let you know how to import ADM files.
The Lazy Admin: Creating Custom ADM Templates

3. Link the GPO to OUs which contain your client computers.

*APPLIES TO*

• Adobe Reader: 7.0, 8.0, 9.0
• Adobe Acrobat: 7.0, 8.0, 9.0