My singular war with Adobe Acrobat Update Manager

[9/25/08: skip to the end for Adobe's recommendation for OS X users]

For years I've had trouble with Adobe Acrobat Update Manager. I think it's something to do with the version Adobe distributes for large enterprises. The updates don't work, and I get messages with words like these:

"Adobe Acrobat Update Manager" "resuming a download" "file on the server" has changed

Every month or two I try a Google search looking for a fix, but I never find anything. I'm the only person in the world hit by this bug.

If you find this post when searching, you're probably in the same club. Send me a note and maybe we can figure this one out...

Update: apparently all I had to do fix this was blog about. Today I got the usual update manager dialog, but this time it actually downloaded a fragment of a file before it quit. The file was broken, but the file name was visible:

Ac705PrP_efgj.exe

A Google search on that pointed to an Adobe download link. The download went very, very slowly, but the file was intact. I was able to then update Acrobat Pro to 7.05. After restarting Adobe Update Manager tried AGAIN to do the update to 7.0.5, but this time it downloaded the file where I told it to and it did the install (nothing was changed since I was now at 7.0.5). So it's working -- for the first time in ages. So now I'll see what happens.

Update 11/26/07: This Adobe download link provides one with all the 7 series updates. A few related tips uncovered in this latest version of the adobe wars:

• be sure that you choose to retain the "installer files". If you don't, life will be heck. During the initial install there's an option to delete these. Don't.
• If you try to be careful, and you don't install Adobe's troubling plug-ins, you also don't install the default Adobe PDF printer! I chose to install the plug-in for Office and it's probably not a bad idea to install the Visio plug-in too. I avoide all Outlook 2003 plug-ins because I think Outlook 2003's add-in (plug-in) architecture is very unstable.
• Be very careful not to install Adobe's automatic updater. It's pure evil.
• Adobe 7.0.5 was the only cumulative updater. So a fresh Acrobat install of 7.0 Professional is very painful requiring multiple updates and reboots.

There's a good reason I don't let Adobe on my OS X machines -- neither reader nor Acrobat.

Update 9/25/08: Incredibly Adobe Updater still has the same problem, but a helpful reader did get a pretty quick answer from Adobe:

I found your page when searching for the same problem you had with your Adobe Updater (...file on the server has changed). I didn't see a solution so I ended up contacting Adobe and they responded in 4 hours with this:

The following steps will clear the Update Manager preferences so that the utility will recheck what updates have been installed:

1) Close all applications.
2) From the Finder select Go > Home.
3) Browse into ~/Library/Application Support/Adobe
4) Move the folder named Updater5 to the Trash.
To launch the Update Manager manually:
/Applications/Utilities/Adobe Utilities/Adobe Updater5/Adobe Updater.app