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Inventory of Adobe Acrobat DC Standard and Professional

on Sep 8, 2017
Latest reply on Jul 24, 2018 by rswain

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Hi all,

In SLM I have a number of installations for an application called Adobe Acrobat DC. On the other hand I have licenses for both Acrobat DC Standard and Professional. These have separate corresponding applications. Problem: All three applications in SLM are identified via Acrobat.exe so that there is no separation on program file level:

So I know that with the Acrobat DC applications can be matched to the repsective licenses only by the Software identification tags (SWIDs), which comes from the registry as documented here: Identifying Existing Installs — Enterprise Administration Guide

I had a look into the Software Recognition Service and found the following applications:

The application highlighted is the one which show a license need in SLM but this is of no use to me since I need to differentiate between a Professional installation and a Standard installation. For the applications Adobe Acrobat DC Professional/Standard (SWID) there are some rules, however no hits for these.

Plus, I cannot determine why these SWID-applications are grayed out. In any case I am not able edit existing rules or add new ones.

Do any of you have experience with representing these applications and their respective licenses in SRS/SLM and can provide best practises?

Thank you,

Alex

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dhardy Sep 8, 2017 8:54 AM
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Hi Alex,
I had assumed Adobe products were correctly identified so must go a check our estate (not that we are a great user of it). Not sure why things are greyed out as i have also noticed this on some of the MS stuff (and comments of disabled in the rules) i have issues with, but what you can do is over-ride the application (say yes to copy the existing rules) and then you can add and modify these rules until you find the options that work and get hits. Once you have this you can send the details to SRS support and see if they can update the global database.

Regards
Duncan
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Abel Sep 11, 2017 3:48 AM
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Hello Alexander,

We had the same issue recently with Acrobat DC on our SLM instance - the core reason was with mismatching versions of Acrobat's executable files and version in SWID tag. This inconsistency did not allow for previous SRS rules to kick in even if correct SWID tag was present, therefore my team submitted a request to Snow's support team with advice to rework the rules to ignore application version in SWID tag.
This was done and in our environment we now see almost all Acrobat DC installations categorized as either Standard or Professional. Those few that are left, do not have a SWID tag, but this is another story.
Please make sure that your Snow Update service is running and receiving new SRS rules - this should make sure that you get the latest version.

One other thing I should note is that I have an example of a customer who uses custom packaged Adobe Acrobat DC. Unfortunately, packagers also modified SWID tag and it does not correspond to default Adobe's format anymore, hence editions will not be recognized by existing SRS rules and custom ones must be created.

As of why SWID apps are grayed out in SMACC - this is due to the fact that they are hidden. As you have already mentioned, Acrobat DC application cannot be fully identified by using only executable file - it also needs SWID tag. For cases where application consists of multiple identifiable entities, application group is created. App group will get discovered only if all underlying entities have been found on a computer. Separate app definitions may be configured as hidden in this case so that they would not appear in the application list and confuse users or compliance.
In our example, Adobe Acrobat DC (2017) Professional and Adobe Acrobat DC (2017) Standard are app groups.
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alexander.butzlaff Sep 12, 2017 8:14 AM
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Thanks to both of you. I will first check how the application is packaged and see if the SWID-file got altered somehow. Plus, I will try and override the applications.

Abel When you got in touch with Snow did they built a customisation for your environment or did they actually update the rule set, of which other customers can benefit from as well?
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- Abel @ alexander.butzlaff on Sep 12, 2017 10:15 AM
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  They have updated centralised rules, so that everyone will receive those changes.
  For modified SWID tags we are currently testing custom rules.
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- tory.simpson2 @ alexander.butzlaff on Sep 18, 2017 10:01 AM
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  Hi Alexander,
  
  Did any of these options help you? Let me know if you don't have a solution yet and I can escalate this internally at Snow
  
  Thanks
  Tory
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  - alexander.butzlaff @ tory.simpson2 on Sep 18, 2017 12:36 PM
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    Hi Tory, unfortunately not. I tried adding a new application that has different rules and excluding the "old ones". Anyway, still no satisfying solution. The solution is right there on a users device: There is the regedit-file that includes the LEID, which includes all information necessary to identify the Installer software. But I cannot get SRS to actually recognize and interpret this file correctly. (Plus, the Admin Tool Guide is not exactly detailed when it comes to setting rules in SRS by the way.)
    
    Best, Alex
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    - tory.simpson2 @ alexander.butzlaff on Sep 19, 2017 4:34 AM
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      Hi Alexander,
      
      Really sorry to hear this. I have spoken to our team internally and we need to get on a support session with you so that we can look at the availability of these SWID tags. If you are able to send an email to support@snowsoftware.com it will raise a ticket and we can help you further.
      
      Feel free to add a link to this post in your email to support so they can see the background.
      
      Hopefully we can get this fixed for you as soon as possible!
      
      Thank you
      Tory
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SAMBeastDavid Sep 13, 2017 2:39 AM
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I firmly believe this is down to Adobe's SWIG tagging being, well, broken. Whilst you get Snow sorted, could you double check your Adobe portal for assigned licensed users via your Adobe agreement and those who may have been naughty and purchased outside of IT?

I'm having to do that now. If they're not in our Adobe portal, then I've instructed Adobe to let their subscription expire so then they'll be forced to go through the SAM team for an updated license!

No reference in the portal, no license!
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benjamin.van.dam Sep 19, 2017 7:12 AM
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Hi alexander.butzlaff,

We know within the DIS team, like David said, that Adobe SWID-tags are "broken". These SWID tags rarely reflect the current environment accurately. We have previously implemented a default script within Inventory to better reflect these SWID-tags accuracies. But unfortunately, this does not seem to be the case for you.

I agree totally with what Aleksandrs has written in regards to the history of SWID-tags being reported in SLM. Also as to what Tory has mentioned, I believe the best way forward would be to raise a support ticket with your Regional Support team, for us to discuss a bit more in detail what the current solution issues are, and for us to handle some of your potentially sensitive information in a more private manner. Some extra background information may be required to process the ticket as it is not always clear, from a metadata perspective, how the Adobe applications have been installed/packaged as both Aleksandrs and David have mentioned.

The best solution is always a global solution, so I wouldnt make any local solutions just yet. Hopefully, we will be able to work with you in achieving recognition as well as boosting global recognition at the same time. Please refer to this thread in the ticket and we should have a resolution for you in no time!

Best regards,
Ben
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- rswain @ benjamin.van.dam on Sep 19, 2017 10:43 AM
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  Benjamin - is there a way you could share your previously implemented default script within Inventory, to better reflect these SWID-tags accuracies?
  
  Thank you.
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  - benjamin.van.dam @ rswain on Sep 21, 2017 2:33 AM
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    Hi Randy,
    Unfortunately, I do not have access to these scripts in the SRS, these are handled by our escalation engineers and Inventory team. They may be able to answer this directly if you raise a ticket with your support team.
    Best regards,
    Ben
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alexander.butzlaff Sep 19, 2017 7:35 AM
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Hi all, many thanks for your replys. I did a test run at a colleagues test VM and I guess I had a Eureka moment: I suggest the issue does not originate from Snow/SRS/SLM but rather from my customer's inventory source. They decided to rely on SCCM for their inventory and did not deploy the Inventory agent (yes, I guess that information could have been useful for this thread beforehand, sorry). So in the aforementioned testrun we installed an Adobe Acrobat DC Pro Trial on my colleagues machine and ran an inventory with the Snow agent. SLM is giving us an Adobe Acrobat DC Pro installation (the Trial component is a matter of online activation, so the installation is exactly the same). Therefore I conclude that SCCM does not deliver the SWID/LeID information we need. I will investigate this further before opening a support ticket.

Best,
Alex
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alexander.butzlaff Mar 26, 2018 3:36 PM
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Hi all, it's been a while and I gained some insight into the issue of getting an inventory of Adobe SWIDs/LeIDs via SCCM. We managed to enhance the SCCM inventory so that it also collects SWIDs and even gets the LeIDs from the file content. So we actually have all the raw data we need to get a proper inventory of Acrobat DC. However, in the SCCM DB the ID information can only be stored in a table separate from the rest of the application inventory - and I have no idea how to make Snow merge both tables, import the entire data and match it with the applications. Therefore I had to create a ticket / an enhancement request with Snow after all, which is being looked into by one of the engineers. While I am waiting, does anyone have an idea on how to cope with this issue?

Best,
Alex
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vicweller Jul 6, 2018 9:51 AM
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Well, I never was into those things that much yet I prefer not to use Acrobat for such purposes for about a year or two so far. Don't know if somebody here is considering to switch to the web-based application with the same features but I prefer using this one for now https://boston-real-estate-board-form.pdffiller.com/ the very thing I don't like about is the uptime during the tax periods, it's a crap. Nevertheless, it's a way cheaper than Acrobat Pro
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alexander.butzlaff Jul 23, 2018 9:38 AM
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Hi all,
I actually got a response to my request - at last However, the outcome does not fit my expectations. Snow Support sent me the following resolution:

I have spoken with my peers and other departments in Snow and it would appear that Snow is not designed in a way to join tables together, to do this we would have to rewrite the code within the product.

Result: I need to rause an idea in the new board and cannot properly inventory my Acrobat installations.

Best,
Alex
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- rswain @ alexander.butzlaff on Jul 23, 2018 11:23 AM
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  Hello - so the product doesn't do what it is sold to do; is that what I should understand from this?
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  - alexander.butzlaff @ rswain on Jul 24, 2018 2:35 AM
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    Hi rswain, depends on your point of view. In my opinion, using only SCCM for getting your technical inventory is not the best solution. SCCM has well-known limitations which is why I have been trying to convince my customer to use the Snow agent - wihtout success so far. However, I agree with you to the extent that it sometimes to be annoyingly complicated to implement adjustments to SLM, for the product seems to function within a rather strictly set framework.
    
    Best,
    Alex
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    - rswain @ alexander.butzlaff on Jul 24, 2018 7:16 AM
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      Agreed, thanks.
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