Inspiring

Answered

Software printers are enumerated incorrectly in the Adobe Acrobat Reader print UI when Acrobat is installed.

Forum|Forum|2 months ago
June 9, 2026
34 replies
1694 views

Hello,

My organization has a use case where we need to have Adobe Acrobat Reader and Adobe Acrobat Standard installed simultaneously for certain users.

It looks like as of Reader/Acrobat 26.001.21651, the Print dialog in Reader does not display the list of software printers correctly. For example, the Microsoft Print to PDF option prints to a different printer when selected, and shows that other printer’s properties when Properties is clicked. This is the case for all software printers in the list. Physical printers on our print server appear to be unaffected.

I did a capture with ProcMon, and it looks like what is happening is Reader is enumerating all of the printers the user has available, but does not list the Adobe PDF Converter that is installed along with Acrobat (it shows up as “Adobe PDF” in the Windows registry and the Procmon log). However, I think although when it filters the name of this printer, it isn’t removing its properties, so those properties ‘roll over’ to the next listed printer, which results in the behavior I am seeing.

I tested this theory by renaming the Adobe PDF entries under HKLM:\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Printers\ and HKCU:\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Devices to something else. As soon as I did that, the new name showed up in the print UI, and the other software printer options were mapped correctly to their Properties and print applications.

I also tried this in Reader/Acrobat 26.001.21662 that just came out, and it has the same bug.

Just to be clear, to duplicate, install the 32-bit versions of Reader and Acrobat>Open Reader>Open any PDF>Menu>Print>Select a software printer>Click Properties>Check the name of the Properties window vs the printer you selected.

I realize that needing both of these apps installed is a niche use case, but I wanted to report this so it can be resolved. Let me know if any more details are required and I can provide via DM. Thanks!

Correct answer AndrewSAIF

Hello, it appears that I am no longer able to duplicate this issue on my test computer running Acrobat/Reader 26.001.21745 that was released this morning.

Hopefully others are able to duplicate this result. Thanks!

jane-e

Community Expert

@heybob wrote “I…called into Adobe support”

Adobe Customer Care does not have phone support. They use Chat and X.

Can you tell us what phone number you used?

Jane

H

heybob

Participant

Sorry I meant I used “chat” within my adobe portal.

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heybob

Participant

I literally called into Adobe support and reported this issue 50 days ago and provided them a video and somehow they don't consider this a high priority problem. It seem Adobe is more concerned about features/looks than reliability. I don’t see how Adobe finds this acceptable when any other company would of had a fix released within 1-5 days.

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AndrewSAIFAuthorCorrect answer

Inspiring

Hello, it appears that I am no longer able to duplicate this issue on my test computer running Acrobat/Reader 26.001.21745 that was released this morning.

Hopefully others are able to duplicate this result. Thanks!

F

Frank Pohl

Participant

We uninstalled your Adobe PDF printer, reinstalled it manually, and used the name "Adobe PDF Converter" as suggested by Windows. This made the printer appear in the printer selection list again.

william111ttt23

Participating Frequently

It definitely looks like a bug. Your testing and ProcMon analysis point to Reader incorrectly mapping software printers when Acrobat is installed alongside it. Since you've reproduced it on multiple versions with clear steps, hopefully Adobe can investigate and fix it soon. Thanks for the detailed report!

SiegePerilous612

Participant

Can we get an update on this? This is still an issue with the current 26.001.21691 update. I had to rollback to a May version and my Security team is absolutely up my ass about this. If I update, then I have a shit ton of tickets from my 4000 users that can’t be bothered to read simple instructions, let alone do a goofy workaround like picking the printer listed directly below the one they intend to use.

This is absolutely unacceptable. Our ETLA budget for all things Adobe surpasses 2.5 million over the course of our term and this is the crap we have to deal with? There have been 4 planned update releases in June and we are now in the middle of July and NOTHING?!

Well, it is a good thing that our ETLA renewal is coming up. This garbage is going to be used in negotiations to drop our costs substantially, or we will drop them completely.

Shameful.

K

karim_8245

Participant

We are extremely concerned by the current situation regarding this Adobe Reader defect.

This bug directly impacts PDF printing capabilities for users who have both Adobe Reader and Adobe Acrobat Standard installed. The issue is not only reproducible but has now been acknowledged by Adobe Engineering for several weeks, yet no fix date or patch availability has been communicated.

From a customer perspective, this situation is difficult to accept. Organizations have invested in Adobe Acrobat Standard licenses to provide enhanced PDF capabilities to their users, and the result is a degraded printing experience within Adobe Reader. A licensing investment should not introduce a regression in a core business function such as printing.

We also believe the delay in delivering a corrective patch is excessive considering the operational impact. Users are confused by incorrectly labelled printers, support teams are spending considerable time troubleshooting the issue, and workarounds are neither intuitive nor acceptable as a long-term solution.

Furthermore, I opened a support incident with Adobe regarding this issue. Surprisingly, Adobe Support was not aware of any upcoming fix, known patch schedule, or official workaround. This gap between Engineering and Support only increases customer frustration and generates unnecessary support activity.

If this situation continues without clear communication and a rapid resolution plan, it will inevitably encourage customers to evaluate exit strategies from Adobe solutions and investigate competing products capable of providing equivalent PDF functionality without introducing such operational disruptions.

We therefore request:

Immediate publication of this issue in the official Known Issues list.
Clear communication regarding affected versions and available workarounds.
A committed target release for the fix.
Improved communication between Adobe Engineering and Adobe Support teams.

At this stage, customers need transparency, accountability, and a concrete remediation plan.

B

BSauer

Participant

I completely agree!

Adobe makes things particularly difficult for users here; this bug has persisted across several updates and, in my case, resulted in a lengthy troubleshooting process and the need to restore the system from a backup. 😓

A note in the bug list would have prevented this!

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AndrewSAIFAuthor

Inspiring

Hello,

It looks like this bug still exists in version 26.001.21691 that was released yesterday. Thanks!

Amal Jaiswal

Community Manager

Hi @AndrewSAIF this bug is still under investigation by our engineering team and they are actively working on this. The fix will be available in the future updates.

Thanks for your understanding.

~Amal

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CoreyOli

Participant

Can we at least get this added to the known issues list? it would have saved me, and I believe many others, A LOT of time troubleshooting...

C

CoreyOli

Participant

I’m curious as to why this has not yet been added to the known issues list for the product? Like many others here I spent way to much time attempting to troubleshoot an issue that ultimately is known about, however is not listed as known about...

SiegePerilous612

Participant

We need an update to this issue ASAP.
We are getting reports of this in our Enterprise as well.

Amal Jaiswal

Community Manager

Hi there

We are sorry for the trouble. This issue is still under investigation, the fix will be available in the future updates. We will keep this discussion updated as soon as we hear anything from the team.

Thanks for your understanding.

~Amal

Corey31598687ruaz

Participant

Thank you for looking into this. I opened a ticket with adobe support and they just sent me instructions on uninstalling and reinstalling both applications and then closed the ticket without asking me if that even worked (It didn’t). I was able to reproduce the issue as soon as I reinstalled adobe acrobat and updated it fully

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