Filtering Adobe apps with the Adobe Update Server Setup Tool

Overview

The Adobe Update Server Setup Tool (AUSST) can be configured to download installation files for a customised list of Creative Cloud applications or for particular major versions of particular applications. This can be used to provide users with a restricted list of applications as shown in the screenshot below, or to save disk space on the update server.

To filter Adobe apps with AUSST:

1. Install a webserver such as Apache or IIS as per the AUSST documentation. Details.
2. Create a filter file containing the names of workstation groups, applications and versions to be downloaded. Details.
   
3. Synchronize installation files using the AdobeUpdateServerSetupTool executable. Details.
   
4. Generate overrides files, one set for each group of workstations. Details.
   
5. Deploy overrides files to workstations either via a package or manually. Details.
   
6. Regularly synchronize the installation files incrementally to ensure the latest updates are available. Details.
   

1. Webserver setup

Install your webserver so that a directory is accessible in which you have sufficient space for the updates required. Ensure the directory has a simple path such as http://<server name>/AUSST/. This can be a virtual directory – for details on this, please refer to your webserver documentation.

If you are synchronizing all updates for all Creative Cloud applications for all the major versions available, this can amount to over 500 GB, so you should ensure that you have enough space on the relevant partition on machine hosting the webserver. If you are restricting the updates to just a specific year (for example, one major version for each application in general), then you'll need about 100 GB.

Note: Individual application requirements vary.

For details, see how to Set up an HTTP server for use with AUSST.

2. Create a filter file

A filter is defined by a group name and a list of applications and (optionally) version numbers. The version numbers constitute the major version which is to be synchronized. You can create filters for specific products, in which case all available versions will be downloaded for the past few years. You can specify particular major versions of those applications to be downloaded. You can filter specific products to be downloaded and specify groups of users who will access subsets of those products, such as a video, publishing, or design team. If your end user workstations are only going to be running the latest major versions of the Creative Cloud applications, you can synchronize only this year's updates to save using storage on your AUSST server for updates which are not going to be needed.

Example XML files which define the filters:

2.1 Filter by application

Specifying only the names of the applications will result in all available versions of those applications being downloaded. This can be useful if you don't want the overhead of having to check which version numbers to download, or if you have a wide variety of specific Creative Cloud application versions in use within your organization.

2.2  Filter by application and version for different departments

Version numbers are the major base version, so in this example, all available Photoshop and Illustrator versions from the 2023 and 2022 releases will be downloaded:

2.3 Filter the latest versions of all applications

For a list of product codes and version numbers for the latest versions of these applications, Applications that can be deployed without base versions.

3. Sync installation files

The AUSST command line tool can be used to perform an initial synchronization as well as an incremental synchronization, downloading only the modified files.

Begin by using the fresh option to download all files for the products specified in your filter file as per the following example:

AdobeUpdateServerSetupTool.exe --root="C:\inetpub\wwwroot\AUSST\" --fresh --filterFilePath="C:\AUSST_filters\Design_and_Video.xml"

4. Create override files

Using the AUSST command line tool, you can create overrides files for macOS and Windows, which should then be copied to the end user workstations. These specify the address of the AUSST server and the group name, so if you have multiple configurations (for a design team and a video team, as shown in the example above), you should create multiple sets of overrides files – one for each team.

For example:

AdobeUpdateServerSetupTool.exe --root="C:\inetpub\wwwroot\AUSST" --genclientconf="C:\shared\AUSST_config\video_2022+2023" -- url="http://<server name>/AUSST/" --groupName="Video"

5. Deploy overrides file to end user systems

Either paste the contents of your overrides file for the relevant group into your Adobe Admin Console prior to creating your package, or manually save the file into the following locations on end user workstations as AdobeUpdater.Overrides:

Windows 7 or 10

• %SYSTEMDRIVE%\ProgramData\Adobe\AAMUpdater\1.0\
• %SYSTEMDRIVE%\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Adobe\UpdaterResources

macOS

• /Library/Application Support/Adobe/AAMUpdater/1.0/
  

6. Restart Creative Cloud Core Service

To delete the cache of available applications, reboot the workstation, or within the Creative Cloud desktop application, press CTRL+ALT+R (CTRL+OPTION+R on macOS) and select Continue to restart Creative Cloud and its background processes. Only the applications available via the AUSST server as defined by the filter in place or those already installed should be displayed.

If you have any issues, contact Enterprise Support via: https://adminconsole.adobe.com/

See also

• Applications that can be deployed without base versions