OT again. Continuing saga of running out of disk space. Seems to be an Adobe

[snowsnowsnow]

Seems to be an Adobe Acrobat problem.

As I mentioned, one of my Windows boxes is always running low on space - sometimes the free space on C: goes to zero.  When this happens, I desperately search around for things to delete.  Note that this machine has a small disk (only 60G, which is miniscule in today's terms, but that is it), so a gig is actually a lot of space.

Anyway, I figured out that Adobe Acrobat was creating a lot of huge files, with either a MSI or MSP extension.  Here is a directory listing:


 Directory of C:\Users\All Users\Adobe\ARM\Reader_23.006.20380

04/27/2024  07:00 PM    <DIR>          .
04/27/2024  07:00 PM    <DIR>          ..
03/30/2024  07:02 PM    <DIR>          25580
03/22/2024  07:02 PM    <DIR>          29403
04/01/2024  07:01 PM    <DIR>          32679
03/21/2024  07:03 PM    <DIR>          9558
01/04/2024  04:25 AM       114,866,176 AcroRdrDCUpd2300820458_incr.msi
01/02/2024  01:17 PM       135,634,944 AcroRdrDCUpd2300820458_incr.msp
01/15/2024  06:07 AM       246,170,624 AcroRdrDCUpd2300820470.msi
01/13/2024  04:58 PM       380,760,064 AcroRdrDCUpd2300820470.msp
02/11/2024  12:15 PM       251,662,336 AcroRdrDCUpd2300820533.msi
02/10/2024  01:40 PM       386,334,720 AcroRdrDCUpd2300820533.msp
02/23/2024  06:34 AM       251,656,192 AcroRdrDCUpd2300820555.msi
02/22/2024  07:27 PM       386,363,392 AcroRdrDCUpd2300820555.msp
03/13/2024  04:33 AM       340,578,304 AcroRdrDCUpd2400120604.msi
03/11/2024  08:48 PM       473,833,472 AcroRdrDCUpd2400120604.msp
03/20/2024  07:44 AM       340,898,304 AcroRdrDCUpd2400120615.msi
03/28/2024  06:32 AM       248,078,336 AcroRdrDCUpd2400120629.msi
              12 File(s)  3,556,836,864 bytes

So, my questions for the group are:

1) Is it safe to delete these?  Note that I've already deleted all the MSIs, leaving the MSPs.  I assume the MSIs are some kind of update - but deity-only-knows why there are so many of them and why they accumulate.

2) What are the MSPs?  Again, I'm pretty sure I know what the MSIs are, but what are the MSPs?

By the way, there are many directories such as the above - this is only the first one I found.  All seem to be related to Acrobat.  Just deleting these MSI files was enough to get me off the crunch, so the problem is solved - at least for now.

Note also the "ARM" in the directory name.  This is an X86-64 system.  Why is it downloading ARM stuff?  (I'm of course only guessing that that is what the ARM means...)

Finally, I have a theory - and it is only a theory - that the reason there are so many - why it keeps downloading them - is that it tries to download it, runs out of disk space, then some time later tries again - and again, and again, without, of course, deleting the failed attempts.

[jmburton2001]

1) Is it safe to delete these?

My two cents... When I've found myself in this position I throw caution to the wind. I'm old and have been dealing with stuff like this for decades. Worst case scenario? I have to uninstall and reinstall.

Anyway, here's what I would do.

1. Copy all those files to another location like a different folder or even a different drive.

2. Delete all those files.

3. See if everything runs. If not, restore those files.

In the end you're no worse off than you were before.

[snowsnowsnow]

Yeah, that's about what I've done.  I ended up deleting the MSPs as well.  Now, I have lots of free space.  We'll see how long it lasts.

The real reason I posted this is that I wanted to know what MSPs are.  As I said, I know what MSIs are, and feel confident deleting them.

I also was hoping someone else had had experience/knowledge with Acrobat, and would know why it does this stupid thing.

I'm also thinking about uninstalling Acrobat (which uses tons of disk space even if it isn't stupidly downloading silly updates) and installing one of the freeware PDF viewers instead.

[snowsnowsnow]

Also curious about the "ARM" in the directory name...

[td]

You may have already encountered this but here is an Adobe technical support discussion that may be of some relevance:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/acrobat-discussions/msp-files-accumulating-needed/td-p/3837513

No mentions of "ARM" though.

[snowsnowsnow]

Thanks for the link.  It was, however, typically unhelpful, as the support websites of big software companies usually are (They are really just propaganda, not actual help).

That's why I come here with my questions.

These days I don't even bother with the usual sites when I have questions, since they are all so "dumbed down".

But anyway, it looks like the problem is solved for now.  We may end up just uninstalling Acrobat entirely, since it is a hog and isn't really needed for PDF viewing (i.e., there are alternatives).

[spl]

But anyway, it looks like the problem is solved for now.  We may end up just uninstalling Acrobat entirely, since it is a hog and isn't really needed for PDF viewing (i.e., there are alternatives).

For os > xp/win7 [although not the greatest browser] Microsoft Edge has a built in PD reader, and you get a Microsoft Print to PDF printer.

[td]

Thanks for the link.  It was, however, typically unhelpful, as the support websites of big software companies usually are (They are really just propaganda, not actual help).

That's why I come here with my questions.

These days I don't even bother with the usual sites when I have questions, since they are all so "dumbed down".

But anyway, it looks like the problem is solved for now.  We may end up just uninstalling Acrobat entirely, since it is a hog and isn't really needed for PDF viewing (i.e., there are alternatives).

"Dumped down" seems to be an ever-accelerating Big Tech pursuit. I thought the reference to a newer version that automagically deleted the old installation files could be of some use. But as you mentioned there are alternatives. 

[snowsnowsnow]

Well here's another chapter to the saga.  As I said, we ended up un-installing Acrobat and were amazed when doing so freed up 7G of disk space.  Who would have thought that a simple PDF viewer could use that much space.  Certainly an example of modern day software bloat.

But here's a funny thing:  Even after uninstalling it, I still get occasional messages onscreen saying that Acrobat has successfully updated itself to the latest version.  So, there's something still embedded in there.  So, I guess we have to live with that - at least until the next reboot.

And another thing: Uninstalling it did not remove any of those temporary files (the MSIs and MSPs).  I still had to do that manually, and (get this) there were two files that could not be removed (all the other files and directories were removable).  When I tried to delete it (from the command prompt), got err msg "Access Denied".  Now, here's the thing: To the best of my knowledge, there are 3 reasons why the system will prevent you from deleting a file:

1) Because you don't have sufficient privileges.  Not the case here - running as administrator and can delete all the other files in the same directory structure - just not these 2.

2) The file is open by some process (*).  Verified with Process Explorer that it isn't.  Note that we've frequently used this method (searching in procexp) to find what process has a file open, so that the process can be exited and then the file deleted.

3) The file has some "funny" attribute set - like S, H, or R.  Verified with "attrib" that none of those bits are set.

So, stumped as to why these last two files can't be deleted...

(*) Note that the error message will be different in this case.  It is something like "The file cannot be deleted because it is open by another process", rather than just "Access Denied".

[spl]

Maybe not helpful https://community.adobe.com/t5/acrobat-discussions/adobe-reader-running-as-background-service/td-p/12837103 as it pertained to Win10, but have you looked at the possibility of a service producing the errors. I haven't had anything to do with Adobe Reader for almost 20 years but you seem to be methodically tracking down what isn't producing it, and someone with more wisdom will check in.

[td]

Elevated admins don't always have full control of a given file. What admins can do is take ownership of a file. Once an admin account or accounts have ownership they can set admin permissions to allow file deletion.

The update prompt is likely the result of a running service. Once you identify the name of the service you can remove it using the "sc delete [servicename]" which removes the service from the registry.