Is it possible to re-cab an Administrative Install Point?

We have Acrobat 8 Pro at work, and our media was painfully out of date. Rather than install all of the machines at 8.0.0 and then do the 6 or 7 consecutive reboots adobe expects you to be ok with I decided I'd integrate the .msp files into the installer.

After reading up on it, I figured out the exact patch order that adobe required, extracted my cd to an Administrative install point, and ran the patches against it:

msiexec /a AcroPro.msi /p AcrobatUpd810_efgj_incr.msp TARGETDIR="C:\Acrobat8" /log "output.log" 
msiexec /a AcroPro.msi /p AcrobatUpd811_all_incr.msp TARGETDIR="C:\Acrobat8" /log "output.log" 
msiexec /a AcroPro.msi /p AcrobatUpd812_all_incr.msp TARGETDIR="C:\Acrobat8" /log "output.log" 
msiexec /a AcroPro.msi /p AcrobatUpd813_all_incr.msp TARGETDIR="C:\Acrobat8" /log "output.log" 
msiexec /a AcroPro.msi /p AcrobatUpd816_all_incr.msp TARGETDIR="C:\Acrobat8" /log "output.log" 
msiexec /a AcroPro.msi /p AcrobatUpd817_all_incr.msp TARGETDIR="C:\Acrobat8" /log "output.log" 
msiexec /a AcroPro.msi /p AcrobatUpd820_all_incr.msp TARGETDIR="C:\Acrobat8" /log "output.log" 
msiexec /a AcroPro.msi /p AcrobatUpd822_all_incr.msp TARGETDIR="C:\Acrobat8" /log "output.log" 
msiexec /a AcroPro.msi /p AcrobatUpd823_all_incr.msp TARGETDIR="C:\Acrobat8" /log "output.log" 
msiexec /a AcroPro.msi /p AcrobatUpd825_all_incr.msp TARGETDIR="C:\Acrobat8" /log "output.log" 
msiexec /a AcroPro.msi /p AcrobatUpd826_all_incr.msp TARGETDIR="C:\Acrobat8" /log "output.log"

Now I have a AIP that is fully patched to 8.2.6 (Tested working prior to attempting to CAB it), but is absolutely huge (1.2gb) what I would like to do is take the folders within the AIP and put them back into a cab file for the sake of convenience in transferring the files around.

I tried the command:

cscript "C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.0\Samples\sysmgmt\msi\scripts\WiMakCab.vbs" AcroPro.msi Data1 /L /C /S

Per the guide I was using, while this did produce the cab file I Wanted, however the resulting MSI fails to install with an error 2602:

It's been a while since I've done something like this, and it's probably a glaring oversight on my part, but any insight would be much appreciated.

Solution 1:

Why not just include the chain of updates with your install so they install in one go without reboots or user interaction? Adobe have a fully supported method in which you can specify the list of patches to be used during the installation.

Direct from Adobe's knowledgebase: Install all Acrobat 8 patches in one step with Adobe Bootstrapper and patch sequencing

Acrobat 8 supports Patch Sequencing. This is a technology that lets the Windows Installer (among other things) to determine which order patches are applied and also allows patches to be applied during installation. Adobe Systems has provided the Adobe Bootstrapper (setup.exe) which can automate a lot of this.

Modifying bootstrapper to install all the patches during installation

1. Copy all setup files to a directory on the network or local system.
2. Download the replacement bootstrapper (setup.exe)from the Adobe website at http://www.adobe.com/support/acrobat/ts/documents/kb403246/Setup.exe.
3. Download all the Acrobat 8 patches here: http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/product.jsp?product=1&platform=Windows and place them into the same directory you copied Acrobat 8 to.
4. Add the following line to setup.ini under the [Product] section:
   [Product] PATCH=AcrobatUpd810_efgj_incr.msp;AcrobatUpd811_all_incr.msp;AcrobatUpd812_all_incr.msp
   Note: it is not necessary to use path statements or quotes.
5. Run setup.exe

If you're automating this part, then you probably also want to be automating all of your settings for the main setup, such as the license key, options, and removing Adobe's adware. You can do all of this with the Adobe Customization Wizard 8 to give you a fully automated and patched install.