GPO MSI Install - Error 1305.Error reading from file

Windows Server 2016

Adobe Reader DC msi

Hi

I'm trying to install Adobe Reader remotely and silently to a set of PCs in a Windows Domain. I have setup a network share, ABC-Deploy$, containing the Acroread.msi together with a GPO (software install) policy to effect this. So far I have not managed to get it working.

Having spent some time trying to isolate what I thought might be a policy failure, I decided simply to click on the MSI in the shared folder to see if it would install. I did this as an admin user on the server itself i.e. where the shared folder containing the msi resides. After the 'do you want to install' preamble the attempts fail with the following prompt:-

Error 1305.Error reading from file C:\ABC-Deploy$\AcroRdrDC2200320282_en_US\AcroRead.msi. Verify that the file exists and that you can access it.

Clearly the file does exist as I have just clicked on it. I have researched this ad nauseam looking at share permissions, NTFS permissions, msiexec parms, admin user rights, clearing temporary files, clearing the registry etc all to no avail. I concentrated on permissions since the msiexec.exe runs under SYSTEM and I'm calling it from a domain admin user.

At present, the ABC-Deploy$ folder has the following permissions:-

I have tried many, many permutations of permissions none of which seem to make any difference.

Any ideas how to resolve this anyone?

Thanks

Note: Moved from StackOverflow to ServerFault 16/12/22

Finally, finally, I have got this to deploy. The permissions, spurious registry entries and temporary installation files may all have had an effect at various stages but the root of the problem was really my mis-understanding of the way Adobe Reader is installed, patched and transformed.

I stumbled upon a reference to the requirement for an Administrative Installation Point, AIP, which led me to this [quite old] Adobe video ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5Ns6WMqgfo .... I hope this, combined with further information about the use of .msts here .... https://www.adobe.com/devnet-docs/acrobatetk/tools/Wizard/deployment.html ... plus a little experimentation might help others with this problem.

Essentially, you need to

1. Extract the downloaded AcroRdrxxx.exe into a local directory, let's call that Dir1
2. Open the Command Prompt, CD to Dir1 and perform an 'administrative' installation using 'msiexec /a acroreader.msi' into another local directory (i.e. not Windows\Program Files). This is done at the installer's 'which directory', prompt. Let's call that Dir2
3. Copy Dir2 to a new blank folder, let's call it Dir3 and then copy the .msp file from Dir1 to Dir3
4. CD to Dir3 and run another administrative install with the patch with 'msiexec /a AcroReader.msi /p AcroRdrxxxxx.msp'. This time stay with Dir3 when the 'which directory' of the installer prompt appears.

The resulting msi in Dir3 is now ready for installation.

If you are brave enough you can copy the setup.ini from Dir1 to Dir3 and run the Adobe Customisation Wizard against the msi in Dir3 to create an mst, 'Transforms', file. With this you can specify the options you would like the install to use. The mst can then be utilised when installing AcroReader.msi from Dir3 using the msiexec parameter /TRANSFORMS="Acroxxx.mst". Note that the setup.ini is only used by the wizard and is not needed by the .msi

I hope this quick explanation of a quite foggy topic helps someone out there and saves them the 3 or 4 working days I spent on this.

Thanks to all for their tips and suggestions.