Imogen Bertin: Confused of Cork

Adobe Presenter 11.1: installation shouldn't be this hard!

I've been working on a project using Adobe Presenter 11.1. This is a good solution for companies that already have a lot of material in PowerPoint, and have started to introduce more engaging eLearning but are trying to keep things practical and useful for their teams so that managers create training that works for their people rather than involving complex authoring by external consultants.

Being a Mac person mainly, I'm used to stuff just working. But Presenter only works with Windows PowerPoint. It does have lots of nice features that make it easy to add quizzes, extra information and interactivity to existing PowerPoint content so I went off and got a new, though inexpensive, Windows laptop for the project.

Nope, they still haven't got Windows installation down to anything approaching acceptable. By the time you've downloaded umpteen updates, that's at least 6 hours of intermittent time just to get to the desktop. Then to my horror, "error 6" when I attempted to install the trial version of Adobe Presenter 11.1!

Although Adobe Support's EU opening hours are pretty limited, I did manage to catch up with a great advisor who helped me through remote screen-sharing, plus I found answers from forums... After a further expenditure of about 8 hours of my time, here's what worked, just in case it helps someone else. Obviously you follow these steps at your own risk - and of course, you should back up your data first.

1. Run a clean Windows install to remove any third party security software or manufacturer bloatware. https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/windows10startfresh
2. Turn off Microsoft OneDrive as this seems to interfere with the location of the Adobe installation files. Or at least it did on the Lenovo I bought.
3. Redownload Office 365, then turn off Powerpoint automatic updates (Start powerpoint with a right click>more>run as administrator, then file>account>update options).
4. Revert to office version 16.0.9001.2171 because of a bug:
   Start>cmd
   Right click command prompt and run as administrator
   At the command prompt, run the following command:
   cd %programfiles%\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\ClickToRun
   Now run this command:
   officec2rclient.exe /update user updatetoversion=16.0.9001.2171
   If a dialog box pops up click Online Repair (it may or may not pop up). The repair process take 10-15 minutes depending upon the network connection.
   Check that automatic updates for Office haven't turned themselves on again.
5. If you had a previous failed installation first go to Windows>settings>apps and remove the Adobe Presenter app. Then run Creative Cloud Cleaner: https://helpx.adobe.com/creative-cloud/kb/cc-cleaner-tool-installation-problems.html
6. Download and run this: https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/scriptcenter/Registry-keys-to-reenable-7cd9f723 to ensure that Flash update is allowed by Windows registry.
7. Restart the computer.
8. Run the installation of Adobe Presenter 11.1 again - free trial is here: https://www.adobe.com/ie/products/presenter/download-trial/try.html
9. Run Powerpoint as an administrator - now you should see the Presenter add-in showing up within Powerpoint and it should work!