From the Adobe Reader, click on Help -> "About Adobe Plug-Ins." -> Comments.
Release notes for Adobe Reader and Acrobat 8.1.2 SU1 security update, which details two other ways to verify that you are using a patched instance of version 8.1.2. Update: After this posting was originally written, Adobe pointed me to the After installing the patch, the Add/Remove programs applet in the Control Panel verified that it had been installed. After installing the just-downloaded software, a check for updates showed that it was missing this latest bug fix. Even though this latest critical patch was released four days ago, Adobe is still offering up the buggy version of version 8.1.2 for download (as of June 27, 7 p.m. On a Windows 2000 machine with version 7 of the Adobe Reader, I uninstalled the old version and downloaded version 8.1.2 from. But, the "Programs and Features" applet in the Control Panel did not indicate that it included this latest patch. A check for updates said it was the latest and greatest. I verified this on Windows XP and 2000.Īs for Windows Vista, I installed a new copy of the Acrobat Reader today. Yet, four days later, its usually excellent online scanner incorrectly flags a patched instance of version 8.1.2 as being version 8.1.0.137. Security firm Secunia issued an advisory about this bug on the June 24. Just today, Adobe's updater warned me that it couldn't check for updates to itself.
But, update applications are far from foolproof. Of course, if you're online, you can always check for updates. So, how can you tell if you have the buggy or the patched version of version 8.1.2?
Pretty surprising behavior, especially since the Adobe Reader may be the most widely installed software on the planet. You would be excused at this point if you thought this posting was about how or why the patch hadn't been correctly installed. After installing the patch, I still had version 8.1.2. I had started with the latest version of the Adobe Reader, 8.1.2. The twist came about when I went to verify that the patch had been installed.