Adobe CS2

Adobe CS2 Apps don't like to be moved

If you move the Adobe CS2 Apps from their default location installs you will need to fix several things that get broken by this.

"/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Launch"
In order for the different Adobe Apps to be able to launch each other  (of particular concern is each app being able to launch the Adobe Help Center) the links in this folder all need to be fixed.  I did this with Symbolic links.  I believe they break because they are aliases to the default application install location.


Adobe Bridge
Bridge checks to see if at least one CS2 product is installed before it'll work, it ONLY looks in the default location that these apps would be installed. Through trial and error we developed the hidden adobe folder at the root of Applications that contains the necessary files for bridge for it to launch.

Adobe Help Center

In addition to the other problems detailed in it's own poorly made app section I wanted to mention a few things here.

"/Library/Application\ Support/Adobe/AdobeHelpData/" must have world write rights in order to work.  This is very bad for enterprise applications.  It is also silly since the help files shouldn't be changing.

Self Heal ... a BANE for enterprise deployment

Basically Adobe Acrobat Pro and Adobe Acrobat Reader reinstall themselves and additional
components if they detect they are missing these componants.  Why does this suck?  I'll give you an example.
   
If you add Office, Adobe's self heal files want to add Office plugins.  What if you don't want them?  Too bad.  Adobe Reader replaces preview as the default pdf viewer.  Don't want this to happen?  Too bad.  Change anything from the way the default app is installed, it will immediately start fixing things.
   
How to fix? These files needed to be modified:
    •    'Library/Application Support/Adobe/Acrobat/CS2ENUProSelfHeal.xml'
(Acrobat Pros Self Heal File)
    •    'Library/Application Support/Adobe/Acrobat/CS2ENUDistSelfHeal.xml'
(distillers self heal file)
    •    'Acrobat Distiller 7.0.app/Contents/MacOS/CS2ENUDistSelfHeal.xml'
(distillers other self heal file; acrobat pro has one of these too but it doesn't seem to use it)
    •    'Adobe Reader.app/Contents/MacOS/SHInit.xml' (Adobe Reader 8s self heal file)
       
    Each of these files needed to be handled in it's one way.  Each of them required trial and error
    on my part to get things happy.  Future updates can perhaps learn from how I hacked these,
    although you'll probably have to experiment and hack your own to get something that works
    satisfactorily.