export/copy all acrobat prefrences ?

If you're deploying to a large organization, have you taken a look at the free [url=http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=3564]Customization Wizard for Acrobat 8[/url] or the [url=http://www.adobe.com/devnet/acrobat/pdfs/InstallShieldTuner7.pdf]InstallShield Tuner for Acrobat 7[/url]? Both of these tools allow you set Preferences prior to deploying.

my problem is post deployment :) users sometimes mess around with thier settings, computer errors cause changes .. and what i do is from time to time "reset" the settings i need on a big bunch of computers.
i will lookinto the sofwares you said! i hope it can help, but sounds like i'm looking for something else ? i found a few files with some of the settings by now, and i know that others are stored in the registry but i couldn't find where exactly..

thank you for the recomendations i'm going to check into it right now!

Nishma,

Tuner and Da' Customizer are great for helping out with the buildout pre-deployment. They don't help all that well post deploy.

Which gets us back to the registry....

There are more places in the Registry that Acrobat saves information than I can shake my stick at!

However, the two main places you want to investigate are:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Adobe\*
and
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Adobe\*

Under each of those the sub components (e.g. Distiller, Acrobat, Reader) will have their own branches.

The Adobe PDF printer is another matter. More places.

User side is in
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Printers\DevModePerUser
and
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Printers\DevModes2

Where the core installation is in:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print
Under there you have entries in Monitors and Printers.

The critical thing is that there are linkages in printer instances (this is not just an Acrobat issue) between the HKLM and HKCU registry areas that only seem to be through windows OS code. In other words, you have to keep some of this stuff in sync, but have no idea how.

Lasty, HKCU can only be updated by the user that it is impacting. You cannot remote onto their workstation and update their registry hive without them being logged in. Adding automatic updates as part of their login script gets around this.

OK - how can you best ferret some of this out.

Start with a snapshot of the system registry, on a clean system, before you install Acrobat. Then install Acrobat and make the necessary setting changes. Don't forget Distiller, Office and IE setting changes!! Close Acrobat (registry updates are saved upon app close - not upon change!)

Resnapshot and subtract the two.

You will still have quite a bit of cleanup that will need to be done on the subtractive registry info. But, at least, you know that your updates won't be outside of that space.

Is it do-able? Yes!!!
Is it straightforward? Fairly.
Is it easy? Easy as in running a marathon. Long road, fairly flat, just a long haul to the finish.

Any other tips?
TEST TEST TEST TEST - then you think you have it right TEST again with a pilot of folks you can make mad before your general rollout.
And ANNOUNCE your intentions corporate wide. People will forgive you if they knew what was happening. They will >insert something bad here< if you don't.Hope this helps.
-Doug

thank you very much this is VERY helpful. going to test test test now.