As an adminstrator, finding ways to install software silently is very important. I have not included Flash player as part of my installation script until yesterday. To install the version 10 silently, use the following command:

IE:

install_flash_player_ax.exe /silent

FireFox:

install_flash_player.exe /silent

You have to close IE and FireFox first before you use these commands. Here are the links to download the Flash player for IE and Flash player for FireFox.

[Update:] These commands do not work for the 10.1 version. Please see this new post for the commands and download location.

Adobe published updates for its Acrobat line of products in March. The updates addressed some critical issues. It is highly recommended that you update Acrobat on your machine.

I helped a user update his Acrobat Pro 9 to 9.1. The installation was not successful initially using the Adobe Updater. I then downloaded the update manually from Adobe’s web site and finished the update process. Everything seems to be running fine except the ability to capture web pages as PDF files. Whenever the user click on the Convert or Select button on IE, the dialog “Could not access Acrobat’s Web Capture facility. Acrobat may be busy or waiting for input.” pops up and the PDF file is not generated.

To fix this problem, click on Help -> Repair Acrobat Installation and reboot the machine after the repair process is finished.

One feature of Thunderbird that I use less often is the address book. The only thing I did was to set up the address book to get the user information from our LDAP server and that’s it. One user came to me and asked about how to configure the address book so that more information can be retrieved from the LDAP server. It took me a short while to find the information to set it up.

If you look at a card in the address book, there is a third tab Other. Four custom fields are in this tab. You can configure the mapping between LDAP attributes and these fields. Follow these steps to set it up.

1. Click on Tools -> Options.
2. Click on Advanced and click on General tab.
3. Click on Config Editor button.
4. Enter attrmap in the Filter box. The 4 preference names start with ldap_2.servers.default.attrmap.Custom are the corresponding preferences that you can change. Doble click on the preference to change it. In this example, I mapped the UserID to the custom field 1.
   
5. Restart Thunderbird when you are done.
6. Search for a user in the LDAP address book and you can see the UserID is shown in the Custom 1 field now.
   

I have been struggling with my email shared folders for quite a while now. I always thought the problem is at the server end. After working with my email admin for a few days, we finally found that the problem is related to Thunderbird.

There is a feature called IDLE command support in Thunderbird. If I have this feature turned on, it’s very slow to access the IMAP shared folders. To turn it off, follow these steps.

1. Click on Tools -> Account Settings.
2. Click on the Server Settings of the affected account and click on Advanced… button.
3. Uncheck the box Use IDLE command if the server supports it .