Software Deployment

AFAICR, the Reader doesn't futz with any system files (doesn't it use WinSxS, anyway?) so why would it matter, before or after? Am I missing something here?

It does use the Windows installer service though, and with many OS updates being applied from month to month (which changes depending on what is on Microsoft's Critical updates list), I just thought that would be an issue.

From what you're telling me though, maybe it isn't?

I am trying to figure out what went wrong and wanted to maybe eliminate that as a possibility. I had asked for the reader to be allowed to run before the OS updates, but was shot down.

Mark

Any special reason why you want to install it through the OS install, why not as you will be doing with the rest of the applications?

You may want to think about the application life-cycle (install, update & remove).
What standard deployment solution will you be using?

If you were to use AD/GPO to deploy applications you may want to uninstall it the same way.

They use their own special patching mechanism at our facility and wanted to distribute the reader updates with Microsoft critical patches. Namely CA.

I was wondering if this is a viable solution and/or if system updates and patches would interfere with the adobe reader install. The windows installer service 'msiexec' has many dependencies and since they are running the reader after all of those updates are applied, I thought this is like a "crap-shoot" as to weather or not if the installer service would be available to do it's job.

If they can run the reader install as a security patch, then they would not have to go through their special 'application tagging process' which takes a while and be able to more quickly respond to those critical updates which come out for the reader from time to time.

Mark

It does use the Windows installer service though Irrelevant. All the WI versions are backwards-compatible, albeit with some caveats concerning the MSI Schema flag.
They use their own special patching mechanism at our facility and wanted to distribute the reader updates with Microsoft critical patches. Namely CA. I'll bet these people use a hammer to screw stuff together as well. If you're confident that your package is good and will deploy OK through conventional means, I'd simply have them do what they want but to leave your name out of it.