Acrobat Pro DC "Not responding" while reading a PDF file

Good day,

Here is how I solved the issue for myself.

Background:

I have Adobe Acrobat Pro DC running on Windows 10 Pro (Enterprise) and I am connected to a corporate Network.  After starting Acrobat (whether with or without opening a Document) it would run for around 15 seconds apparently normally.  It would then hang / freeze / crash.  If I tried to click on anything more than a few times then Windows would report that Acrobat is "Not Responding".  It would recover on its own within around another 15 seconds.  This is a common complaint from what I can see.  I tried the following things without any success:

Things that didn't work:

Setting Recently Used Documents to only 1

Toggling Enhanced Security, Protected Views settings, etc.

Plug-Ins attempts:  Holding Shift when Acrobat starts keeps the problems from happening (but I need many of the Plug-Ins).

Graphics (Multimedia) Settings changes:  No effect for me.

Trying all kinds of permutations of settings in the Preferences settings had no effect for me.

My solution (works for me):

1)     Close down Acrobat. 

2)     Fire up regedit (follow the usually cautions for dealing with the Registry)

3)     Navigate to:  HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Adobe\Adobe Acrobat\2015\FeatureLockDown

4)     You should see Key folders with names like cDefaultExecMenuItems,  cDefaultFindAttachmentPerms, cDefaultLaunchAttachmentPerms, cDefaultLaunchURLPerms 

5)     If a key name named cServices does not yet exist, then create it (right click on FeatureLockDown and select New -> Key and name it cServices).

6) Left Click to Select the cServices Key you just created. 

7)     Right click in the white space in the right side pane and select New -> DWORD (32-bit) Value and name this new Value bToggleAdobeDocumentServices

8)     Double Click on the newly created bToggleAdobeDocumentServices and enter 1 (Hexadecimal) for the Value data.  Click OK. 

9)     Continue creating new Key names within the cServices Key folder until you have the following: 

               Name Type                                                                             Data

               bToggleAdobeDocumentServices      REG_DWORD          0x00000001 (1)

               bToggleAdobeSign                              REG_DWORD         0x00000001 (1)

               bTogglePrefSync                                  REG_DWORD          0x00000001 (1)

               bUpdater                                                REG_DWORD         0x00000000 (0)

          Note: The value of bUpdater is 0 while the values of the first three are 1). 

          Note: When you create the cServices Key folder a Key named (Default) may be automatically create, this is OK.  Just ignore it (don't try to delete it). 

10. Close the regedit, and restart Acrobat.  You may need to restart your PC. 

More Info:

An explanation of these Registry fields can be found here: 

Services integration

I looked for this when I discovered that the problem had to do with one the Plug-Ins (as I mention above).  I traced it to IA32.api.  But, removing this Plug-In file crippled Acrobat in addition to keeping it from crashing.  Adobe Support tried to help me but they couldn't figure it out and I couldn't spend any more time with them.  These registry changes will stop Acrobat from going out to "the Cloud".  This keeps it from hanging while it tries to get through the corporate firewall.  My opinion is that it it very poor design and maybe insufficient testing that would cause this unresponsiveness to happen and go undetected.  I have been unable to find a non-registry way to get this result. 

Good luck! :-)