Why Adobe Acrobat Update fails when Documents folder is moved to network location

I am going to start with a Rant.

By default, several companies use the “My Documents”/”Documents” directory as a repository for their application settings. I find Adobe and APPLE products tend to do this more often then other companies. Things like iTunes and Adobe Reader/Adobe Flash are the top 3 apps that abuse the documents folder.

In all operating systems like Windows, Mac OSX, and Linux users have a profile directory. In that directory, you will find folders like “Desktop”, “Documents”, “Pictures” etc. Most companies with any sense of file management will normally save files in this directory as well. Because most users never venture into the root folder of the profile these folders are relatively safe from people accidently deleting items.

So where can you find your local profile directory? Well in Windows Vista/7 you can find it in “C:\Users\Username”. In my case it would be “C:\users\jared” or “C:\users\jheinrichs” depending on what machine I’m logging on to.

Because companies like Adobe and Apple throw all their profile specific files in the “Documents” directory, people often have issues when they try to update things when this folder has been redirected to a network location. Why would someone want to redirect their Document Directory? Hmmm… Let me see… Does a thing called idiot proof backup come to mind?

The practice of dumping config files to the Documents directory is terrible for many reasons.

If you want to move the location of the documents directory to the network, all of the user’s local software settings also have to be transferred. What I find quite “funny” is the applications that don’t have very good file management, also have the audacity to make users run as an administrator of your LOCAL machine. Because the local account administrator account has no permission on the “network drive”, the update fails!

Another reason I absolutely hate it when applications save their config files to the “Documents” area is that people delete files in the documents folder all the time! You might laugh but I’ve heard several times “What is this Adobe Folder that’s in my documents? I thought it was a virus and I deleted it.” or “I never put the file in my documents directory so I just deleted it!”.

Where do companies like Adobe and Apple get the right to start completely messing around with best practices? I can see how Apple wouldn’t care if the Windows version messes things up but Adobe doesn’t directly compete with Microsoft!

Now that you know why Adobe Acrobat Update fails what can we do about it?

There is two ways of dealing with this issue:

In my opinion the easiest and most convenient way is to open a command prompt as administrator.

To do this I recommend doing the following:

1. Click the START ORB – then type “CMD”.
2. DON’T HIT ENTER
3. Right click on “CMD” in the search results
4. Click run as “Administrator”.

You should now have a command prompt box open. If you type “Net Use” you will see something similar:

Forget that G: says “OK” right now. See how all the other network drives say “Unavailable”?
That is the reason why you can’t install the update! So how does one make it say “ok”?

I thought you’d never ask!

You just have to run a command to re-connect the drive as the local administrator. To do this type:

“net use x: \\server_name\share_name /persistent:yes”

If I were to use the i: in the screenshot as an example I would type: “net use i: \\server\installs /persistent:yes”.

Another way to deal with this issue is just to Temporarily move the Documents folder back to the local drive while you run the update. Once the update is done, set the folder redirection back.

**NOTE** – It will recommend you move the files. Make sure NOT!!!! to do this.

Apply the update you are needing. Once done you can re-direct the Documents folder again to it’s original location.

**NOTE** – Again It will recommend you move the files. Make sure NOT!!!! to do this.