OK, I’m impressed. I’d always closed down whatever I was doing before, but I decided to just let Adobe Reader update itself while I had a manual open. It not only closed the application before installing the update, but it started itself up again, re-opened the document I was reading, and picked up right where I left off.

In general, I think that making every application re-invent the update wheel is kind of pointless when you have centralized update systems on every OS*…but I suppose sometimes re-inventing can lead to finding a better solution. Just last week I had to reboot Windows to uninstall Acrobat 6.

*Windows: Windows Update. Mac: Software Update. Linux: varies with distribution, but the most common are probably Apt, Yum, Up2date and YaST.