Software Deployment

If you are installing a new version, the older ones should automatically be uninstalled, provided that the Upgrade table is correctly populated and you have the value for public property REMOVE_PREVIOUS as "YES".

If you using SCCM.

Do software report using the wildcards, search for %Adobe Reader%. This should give you all the versions you have installed on your estate. After you have the version information, you can start grabbing all the ProductCodes form the machines.

From here you can make a package, no even better! Use a Task Sequence to remove the programs.

• Example:
  Search with SCCM Report tool: wayhey found Reader verson 8 and 9, this should list he computers as well. Remote to registry, find uninstall string, hopefully this will be the ProductCode (looks like a GUID).
• Got Products, cool what next?
  Make a task sequence in SCCM, add a task to run a command, make it look like this.
  msiexec /x {12345678-1234-1234-1234-123456789012} /qn
  
  Do it again for the other versions.
  Put CONDITIONS on the action, this is in the options tab. Oh i just checked, you need the MSI to populate the filelds, if you can do this, it would be elegent, otherwise check the contune on error check box.
• Thats it, make a collection and test it out on a small numbe of PC's.

You can use this tool: http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/acrobatcleaner.html

It is very easy to use and you can run it in silent mode. Here are the parameters for this tool:

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AdbeArCleaner Help
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This tool removes Adobe Acrobat or Adobe Reader including any preferences
and settings that may be preserved during a standard program uninstall.

AdbeArCleaner.exe [/silent] [/Product=<value>] [/CleanLevel=<value>] [/ScanForOthers=<value>] [/InstallPath=<value>]

/Silent        Execute tool in silent (Non UI) mode.
        If this parameter is not passed , UI mode is invoked.

/Product        Product to clean.
        =0 (Acrobat)
        =1 (Reader)
        Default value is 0.

/CleanLevel    It specifies the level of cleanup i.e. components shared            between Acrobat and Reader should be cleaned or not.
        =0 (clean only distinct components)
        =1 (clean both distinct and shared components)
        Default value is 0 in case this parameter is not passed.

/ScanForOthers    If this parameter is set to 0, AdbeArCleaner would clean
        InstallPath entered on command line only.
        =0 (Only clean the installation directory specified by
        parameter ScanForOthers)
        =1 (Clean all found/detected instances of the product)
        Default value is 1.

/InstallPath    It is a string that specifies installation path on the machine.
        Default installation path is assumed if this parameter is
        missing.
        Example: "C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Reader 10.0"

Example Command: AdbeArCleaner.exe /silent /product=0 /cleanlevel=0 /installpath=xyz (Note that there are no spaces around "=").

Logs are created at system temp folder i.e. at location [%temp%]\RaftLogs\AdbeArCleaner.log
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OK  
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I'm going to use SCCM to deply the package.