MDT, Java and Adobe Reader OH MY!

Java and Adobe reader require at least quarterly updates for security and bug fixes. This makes it challenging to keep your PC images up to date so you don't have to manually apply all these updates on each PC. Googling for MDT and Java or Adobe reader takes you down many deep rabbit holes from which your mind not escape intact.

If you simply want a silent install of each of these beasts that will still get online updates as if you ran the typical web installer follow these instructions.

Java
Visit this page to get the manual(offline) installer for the latest release of Java
Import the file into MDT as you would any other setup. Silent install command is jre-7u67-windows-i586.exe /s

Adobe Reader
Visit this page to download the offline installer for the latest release of Reader. Import the file into MDT as you would any other setup. Silent install command is AdbeRdr11008_en_US.exe /sPB

So many of the posts out there were for old versions that didn't offer this functionality and had me installing orca or other MSI modifying programs that just were not needed anymore or had me building my own custom MSI file that then disabled the ability of these programs to auto update from the internet. My organization doesn't have SCCM or any other tools to manage updating these programs outside of the auto update that is built into them so it cost me a lot of time to go around and fix this on every computer.

Hope this saves someone some sanity and hours of their life.