Adobe CS5 – PKG Installer
Posted by admin in Adobe CS5 News, Adobe CS5 and MacMay 18th, 2009 | 8 responses
Adobe has indicated that the next version of Creative Suite (CS5) will have installers that are in pkg format. This will, of course, make it much easier for those of who administer and deploy Macs to manage Adobe’s software. And if that weren’t enough, they’ve also said that the next verison of Adobe Acrobat (version 10) will not have the obnoxious “self-healing” functionality anymore:
[William Smith writes]: I’d like to hear something from Adobe about plans for Acrobat and their installer. On the Mac side, Acrobat seems to be a stepchild of Adobe’s installer technology and I don’t understand why.
[Adobe staffer answers]: The Acrobat installers are actually completely separate from the suite installers. Its more of an organizational issue than anything else. The Acrobat installer and the Reader installer are completely different technology and a completely different team.
That said, the Acrobat installer for the next major Acrobat release plans to be completely PKG for the Mac. In addition, the self-healing functionality should be gone (that is the technology that tries to do further setup after first launch.) They planned to get rid of self-healing in Acrobat 9 but couldn’t quite get to it. For the next version it is already removed so really should ship without self-healing.
Adobe finally seems to be listening to the screaming coming from their customers. I have spent so many hours struggling with Adobe’s installers and their ridiculously bad updater software, and I know I’m not alone.
About .pkg
Pkq is a file format used by Apple, Inc. on its Macintosh line of computers, and the iPhone. It’s also used by Sony’s PS3. Not much is known about the format, although it is known that the files are very compressed. The format is opened by Apple’s Installer application, which reads the .pkg file and installs the software it contains. The .pkg file format allows easy installation of software by end users, and is commonly used by both Apple and third-party developers.
Back in the 90’s, the .pkg file format was also the Installer Package format of the Be Inc Operating System called BeOS. Since a lot of old Be Inc developpers are nowdays working at Apple, it’s possible that both format work the same way. Be bought up a company called StarCode and acquired their packaging tools.
8 Responses to “Adobe CS5 – PKG Installer”
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Actually, a lot *is* known about the .pkg format. Also, it’s *not* the same as used by the PS3 and BeOS. Where are you getting your information? Just because the extensions are the same doesn’t mean that they’re the same format.
The pkg format has been around Apple since the Newton days.
Am I missing something? The installers published today as demo download of CS5 Master Collection is still Adobes own installers. Where are the .pkg installers?
You can review lots of info about Adobe installers and related issues at the Adobe blog:
http://blogs.adobe.com/OOBE/
This is a good place to ask for more info.
The Enterprise Deployment Toolkit for CS5 will be released in a few weeks.
All-
The best place to raise issues/concerns about the Creative Suite installer is at the “Out of Box Experience” blog at:
http://blogs.adobe.com/OOBE
There has been a tremendous amount of effort to make the Installer easier, faster and more robust in CS5 released today.
Some of you have asked how to contact me. My email address is bhills@adobe.com (though I will be out of the office next week but returning the following Monday and I will be happy to follow up directly with any of you on specific issues you may have)
Best regards,
Barry
VP, Engineering and Operations
Creative Suite
This may be a stupid question but is there a reason not to do the installers as MSI / pkg to begin with? I´m sure you have your reasons but as a IT guy in small / medium businesses the whole processes of having to make your own installers is usually time-consuming and has to be tested time and time again.
Even MS has managed to make Office 2008 a .pkg on the Mac side – why can´t Adobe make it easy?
Will this Enterprise Deployment Toolkit be free for everyone or just for companies with large volume licenses?
I have a copy of cs 5 and it’s the same install process as before.
NO pkg files. They probaly will have pkg files in Adobe CS500 after the earth explodes
This is just plain stupid and annoying. I have Installed CS4 last time, took us 3 nights work with 3 administrators to do 80 mac/pcs. This is one really good reason not to upgrade to the latest version. How hard can it be to create a PKG/MSI file? And while your at it: create a centrale update server. Downloading and/or creating scripts to update clients is so 1999.