Question: In the past few days every time I start Adobe Acrobat Pro 9, Adobe Flash CS4 or Photoshop CS4 the Acrobat Reader (!) updater pops up and tries to download updates. It slows down my Internet connection too. This time the Adobe Updater wants to download more than 300MB from the Internet. I want to get rid of it completely. How can I disable it in Windows 7? Answer: You should know that Adobe Reader often has critical security hole that is being exploited over the Internet. Most of the changes have been security-related. Generally it is a good idea to let Adobe products update themselves. In Windows 7 the Adobe Updater (Adobe_Updater.exe) has been installed into the folder of \Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Updaterx (where x is a version number), for example: C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Updater6. 1. Run Adobe_Updater.exe as an administrator 2. Select Preferences 3. Uncheck “Automatically check for Adobe updates” to disallow automatic updates 4. Check or uncheck what programs you want to include or exclude in the update process 5. Click on OK to save your settings. You can run the updater from the Adobe Reader 9: 1. Run the Adobe Reader and click on Help 2. Find and click on Check for Updates… 3. The Adobe Updater dialog box pops up. Change the preferences there. Adobe Photoshop CS4, Adobe Flash CS4 … Adobe Creative Suite (CS) 4 uses the Adobe Update Manager (AUM) Version 6 to notify users of important product or component updates. For the Acrobat family, AUM was replaced by the Acrobat Updater and Reader Updater for versions 8.1.7 and 9.2 and later. Try these steps: 1. Run Regedit.exe and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Adobe 2. Create a new key named “Updater” 3. Create a new String value for this key. Name it as “Enterprise” and add it as a DWORD value of “1”. 4. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Adobe and locate the string value “AdobeOnlineDefault”. If this value is not present, create it. Set the Data value to 0. 5. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Adobe\CSXSPreferences\ 6. Locate the string value “UpdatesAllowed”. If not present, create it as new string value. 7. Double-click and set it’s Value Data to “0” to disable updates. Adobe updater is really fast moving target. It sounds extreme, but if above steps do not work for you and Adobe CS apps like Photoshop CS4 or Flash CS4 demand updates frequently than look for the AdobeESDGlobalApps.xml file in the \ProgramData\Adobe\Updater6 folder and open it with an XML or text editor. Check out the IsEnabled = 1 settings in the application XML node you do not want to have on the updater’s list. Set to 0 to disable it. You may need administrator privilages to save the changes. The contents of the file look something like this: Mac OS X On Mac OS X machines Adobe Update Manager starts itself automatically on system launch and takes over your Mac, and peridically pops up. Sometimes a mandatory update is required! If you can’t find the updater settings (Help -> Updates…, or Help -> Check for Updates, or Edit -> Preferences) in your Adobe applications’ menus, try out the followings: 1. Create com.adobe.AdobeUpdater.Admin.plist file in the root library/preferences folder (/Library/Preferences). Use the Property List Editor. 2. Add a boolean key (“Disable.Update“) and set the value to true. 3. Save the file and check it out if the plist file is really in the /Library/Preferences folder. If not look at the disk root first. On Mac other keys can be found in the following Property List (.plist) files: 1. /Library/Preferences/com.adobe.AdobeOnlineHelp.plist. AdobeOnlineDefault: controls online connects for Search for Help and Help > [Product Name] Help. Change the value of the key AdobeOnlineDefault to “0” to disable updates. 2. /Library/Preferences/com.adobe.CSXSPreferences.plist. AdobeOnlineDefault: controls online connections for the other services. UpdatesAllowed: controls download of updates to these service extensions. Change the value of the keys AdobeOnlineDefault and UpdatesAllowed to “0” to disable.