How To Push Adobe Flash Updates Over the Network

Adobe Flash Player has been the target of many security attacks lately due to its inherent security flaws.  Adobe updates the Flash player frequently.

It’s very difficult to get all of the systems on your network updated because it requires Administrator permissions to apply the updates.  There aren’t any inexpensive tools for pushing these updates out so I will show you how to do this using the scripting features in Bozteck VENM Remote Desktop Manager..

Bozteck VENM is a Swiss army knife for System Administrators that has many of the remote management features that you’d expect from an enterprise operations management console.

Here are the steps in a nutshell:

1. Download the flash player distribution from here
2. Create the script in the Script Manager
3. Add the flash install file to the script window
4. Ensure that you have access permissions to the remote computer(s)
5. Select the computers that you’d like to deploy the script to
6. Select the script from the dropdown
7. Watch it work

Downloading Flash Player

You can download the scriptable Flash player from http://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/fp_distribution3.html.  For this tutorial, we’re going to download the Internet Explorer executable.

Create the script

Open the script manager using the Tools => “Scripts and Commands” menu as shown below:

From the window below, choose “New Script”

In the new script window,enter the script title and optionally a folder to group it in as well as any notes on the deployment and then choose to include a file.

Browse to the install_flash_player_10_active_x.exe file that you downloaded to choose it.  You will see the path to the file below:

When the script is executed on the remote computer, the path to the included file will be %systemdrive%tempvncscaninstall_flash_player_10_active_x.exe.  Any files that you attach to script this way are always stored there.  You’ll need to reference that location by using that in the path of the file that you’re calling.  See the screen shot below:

%systemdrive%tempvncscan\install_flash_player_10_active_x.exe /silent

Choose “Save and Close” to return back to the main window.

Deploy the script

We need to start by ensuring that the administrative access to the remote computer has been set.  One way to do this on a per-computer basis is to right-click the computer and choose properties; and then flip to the “Windows Login” tab.  Enter the Administrator username and password that is valid on the remote computer.  If you’re not on a domain, just leave the domain field at %HOST%.

Now, select the computer in the Managed List.  Now, click on the “Remote Scripts” and choose your new script.

The window below will pop up and the software will be deployed:

Keeping Up to Date

You can keep this script up to date easily because Adobe always names the file the same every time.  Simply return to the website and download the latest version, remove the one in the script, and then add this new download.  Simply re-deploy and you’re up to date!