If you find this post in 2023 or beyond and are looking for the CF2021 installers, please read this update before proceeding. This post is from Oct 2022, about new installers offered then, while CF2021 was still the latest version.

To be clear, once Adobe comes out with a new version, they no remove the installers of the old version from the public pages of their site. Does that mean you're stuck and CANNOT get the installers, perhaps that "you paid for"? No, it does NOT mean that. You just need to know where to find them.

1) First, if you are the person who BOUGHT CF, then you should have an account at either https://account.adobe.com/products or https://licensing.adobe.com/, and you can find the installers you paid for there.

2) If instead you either DID NOT buy CF (perhaps using the free trial edition), or someone ELSE bought it (maybe you don't know who it is), or you just can't get into that account, note that there is an online repository of old (and new) installers at cfmlrepo.com, which is managed by trusted community members, including myself.

Now, back to what the original post was about...

Here's some surprising news: Adobe has released a "refreshed" installer for CF2021, which includes update 5 (which came out last week) built-in.

Did you know about this? You'd be forgiven if you had not heard, for reasons I will explain. And I'm glad to share the news, though it's a good news/bad news sort of thing (just like with the update itself. More on that in another post to come.)

TLDR: these new "refreshed" CF2021 installers are (for now) available only here: here.

As for information ABOUT the refreshed installers, here's the news in brief (the good and the not so good):

• Good news: there is a new full installer for CF2021, for each of Windows, MacOS, Linux, and Solaris.
• Not good news: there are not new "zip" installers, at least for now.
• Good news: these "refreshed" installers includes update 5, so if you are installing CF2021 newly on a machine, that would be easier than getting an older installer and updating it.
• Not good news: the installer implements only Java 11.0.11, while the version available as of the release of update 5 last week was 11.0.16.1, from July 2022
• Some odd news: Adobe didn't mention the availability of this refreshed installer in the CF2021 update 5 technote, nor their blog post or forum post announcing update 5.
• The most odd news: again, the refreshed installers are only available for download from one place currently, the CF "downloads" page. More on that below.
• Bad news for those still using CF2018: while there was indeed the update 15 released also last week, Adobe has NOT offered such a refreshed installer for CF2018 and likely will not.

Read on for more.

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That may sound like a boring or simplistic topic to some. "Doesn't everyone already know how to install CF?" Trust me, they do not. :-) I help people do it every week, whether CF2021 or earlier versions. There are various tips I can and will share, and of course some about CF2021 in particular. But much will benefit you even if still using an older CF version.

For more on the talk, including a description (and my bio) see the meetup event page, which offers details like the URL for attending, the date and time (Thursday at 12p Eastern), and more.

I have just realized that I've been derelict in announcing here on my blog when I'm giving such talks. I did 3 meetup sessions last year, as well as a couple of AMA ("ask me anything") sessions with Dan Wilson, who has been helping me in running the group the past year, with my sincere thanks! :-)

Note: This blog post is from 2020. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.

To be clear, I do not mean with this warning to suggest that you should NOT apply the update! It implements an important security fix.

Instead, it's that after applying it, your CF web sites served via IIS or Apache WILL likely break initially, until you take one at least and perhaps two extra steps. The good news is that these steps are both easy and documented by Adobe in the update technotes, but they do require that someone do them, if needed. Let me explain.

[Update: I did an abbreviated version of this post on the Adobe CF portal: Three reasons your sites may break, and how to fix them, after applying March 2020 update to CF2018 or 2016. Note I also titled it differently. Just trying many ways to get people's attention. That post may interest some, either to read first (but my TLDR below also tries to abbreviate things also), or especially if you may prefer to give others a link to a post on this matter that is not as "dense" as this one. :-) I do point to this post from there, of course, for the many additional details that some may appreciate.]

Sadly, because many people don't bother to read the CF update technotes (linked to below), and they just apply the CF updates, they are not noticing this issue until they or their users start screaming because their sites are down. There's also a fair bit of "screaming" in the CF community, and folks responding may not know the info that I (or Adobe) have shared, to get things "working again", so I hope this helps bring some calm, and most important the clear solution/s needed.

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Note: This blog post is from 2019. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.

For some, that's all they need to know. For most, they will probably want to read on.

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Note: This blog post is from 2016. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.

For many, that's all they need to know. For others, there are some more points worth discussing. Read on, if that may interest you.

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