Getting rid of Adobe message at boot-up

[W. eWatson]

Every time I boot up, I get a msg that my Adobe Acrobat Pro v8 has new
updates. How do I get rid of the message?

 

[Paul]

Every time I boot up, I get a msg that my Adobe Acrobat Pro v8 has new
updates. How do I get rid of the message?

If you use Sysinternals Autoruns, you can see the items Adobe added
to your system.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963902

Using that, I see "adobearm.exe" and the SpeedLauncher "reader_sl.exe".

And there is a discussion here, about various things you can play with.
Dangerous of course, but available. Using Autoruns, you can easily
tick the box next to the Adobe items to stop them. It's possible
"adobe arm" handles the checking of updates, but it is also possible
when you also run the program, it's going to know the updater is disabled,
and then the program can do whatever it wants (like load a startup
setting for the updater again). In which case, perhaps the registry
setting is the way to go.

"Reader 9.2 - AdobeARM - Purpose?"

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/522601

The updates may be necessary, or unnecessary. If all the updater wants
to do, is update you to 10.x , then that might be considered useless. If
the version you're using, no longer receives security updates, then
bumping up a revision might be worthwhile. Acrobat Reader has exploits,
so using it is not entirely risk free. And that's why they have an updater
running.

Paul

 

[Bert]

Every time I boot up, I get a msg that my Adobe Acrobat Pro v8 has new
updates. How do I get rid of the message?

Did you look in Acrobat's "Preferences" settings for options to control
update checking and downloads?

 

[Mayayana]

In addition to the other advice (no sense in letting it
run at startup) you might consider switching to
SumatraPDF. It's lightweight, open-source, free software.
Acrobat is bloated and intrusive. I'd also suggest not
using the browser plugin. Adobe has tried to standardize
PDFs as a type of webpage by loading browser plugins
without asking. But the Acrobat plugin is an attack
target, and in most cases with a PDF online one wants
a copy anyway. So unless you happen to really like that
feature, what's the sense of loading it in the browser in
the first place?
If you remove any PDF plugins then a link
to a PDF will elicit a download dialog. (If you want a
browser plugin -- I don't think Sumatra provides that.
I think the free Foxit does, but in my experience
Sumatra seems to be better than Foxit. And it also allows
one to extract the text of a PDF without having to buy
a "pro" version.)

 

[Mayayana]

|
| Acrobat Pro is not the same as SumatraPDF.
|

Woops. Sorry. I didn't notice he had said Pro.
I was assuming the Reader,which nearly everyone has.

 

[W. eWatson]

Update it !

Adobe PDF is a target of the vulnerability/exploit vector. If Adobe Acrobat Pro v8 is NOT
at v8.3.0 level you need to update it.

ftp://ftp.adobe.com/pub/adobe/acrobat/win/8.x/

It is.

 

[W. eWatson]

You are saying that when you you go to help --> about
it shows v8.3.0 ?

Ah, faulty memory. My last install was 8.1.3, and not 8.3.0. The install
was not successful. A week or more ago I tried to download 8.3.0, but
was not successful with the install. I think it's time to go to the
Adobe Forum and find out why not.

 

[W. eWatson]

You are saying that when you you go to help --> about
it shows v8.3.0 ?

Ah, faulty memory. My last install was 8.1.3, and not 8.3.0. The install
was not successful. A week or more ago I tried to download 8.3.0, but
was not successful with the install. I think it's time to go to the
Adobe Forum and find out why not.

 

[W. eWatson]

A little muddled here. My response went into limbo, and I retyped part
of it. Here it is corrected.

Ah, faulty memory. My last install was 8.1.3, and not 8.3.0. A week or
more ago I
downloaded 8.3.0, but was not successful with the install. I think it's
time to go to the
Adobe Forum and find out why not.

 

[W. eWatson]

Update 8.1.4, 8.1.5, etc., until you have 8.3.0. They are consecutive updates.

ftp://ftp.adobe.com/pub/adobe/acrobat/win/8.x/

True enough. I got a hold of a live Adobe tech, and they didn't even
charge me for the help. The guy was a solid tech.

Interestingly as he led me through this, one could see a shift in the
way Acrobat Update handled it all. We dodged a lot of bullets, and as we
moved up the ladder, Update came quieter and quieter. One could hardly
tell what was going on. So now I have 8.3. Once finished with 8.1.7, it
just burst to 8.3. I do think I have 8.3 on another PC. It took over
one hour on the phone.

 

[W. eWatson]

Did you look in Acrobat's "Preferences" settings for options to control
update checking and downloads?

I'll take a look.

 

[W. eWatson]

In addition to the other advice (no sense in letting it
run at startup) you might consider switching to
SumatraPDF. It's lightweight, open-source, free software.
Acrobat is bloated and intrusive. I'd also suggest not
using the browser plugin. Adobe has tried to standardize
PDFs as a type of webpage by loading browser plugins
without asking. But the Acrobat plugin is an attack
target, and in most cases with a PDF online one wants
a copy anyway. So unless you happen to really like that
feature, what's the sense of loading it in the browser in
the first place?
If you remove any PDF plugins then a link
to a PDF will elicit a download dialog. (If you want a
browser plugin -- I don't think Sumatra provides that.
I think the free Foxit does, but in my experience
Sumatra seems to be better than Foxit. And it also allows
one to extract the text of a PDF without having to buy
a "pro" version.)

Yes, I've heard of it. A friend recommended it. I might just do it. An
upgrade is $200!!

 

[W. eWatson]

Acrobat Pro is not the same as SumatraPDF.

Adobe Acrobat Professional is a full fledged PDF creation package allowing everything ftom
deleting and inserting pages into a PDF, typwriter function, Life Cycle Designer,
distiller, PDF protection and digital signing.

Adobe Reader is a PDF viewer and SumatraPDF (or FoxIt) can replace the viewer. However
not when one needs to create PDF files.

I use Adobe Acrobat 9.x and PDFCreator on SourceForge. PDFCreator can create and distill
data into a PDF but it can't manipulate a PDF nor be used to create fillable PDF Forms
like Life Cycle Designer which is in the Acrobat Professional package. I have tried using
LibreOffice Writer to create fillable PDF Forms but it is nothing like the drag& drop GUI
capabilities of Life Cycle Designer but it is possible.

The OP "needs" to install the updates to bring Adobe Acrobat Professional to v8.3.0. The
last update was June 2011.

I got Acrobat for a low price years ago when I deliberately took a
simple course at a local community. One hour credit. I took advantage of
the student discount. The features are beyond what I need. I use it only
for creating pdf files from web sites and making Word files into a pdf.
Maybe some of the choices above would suit me better.

Yes, I did get 8.3 installed. I have posted in the Adobe forum about
trouble creating a pdf.