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Nucleus38297422cmgv
Participant
October 27, 2025
Answered

Device activation limit reached on RDS servers

  • October 27, 2025
  • 2 replies
  • 98 views

We run Adobe Acrobat Pro subscription licenses for our users that we manage with a Teams account.  There are 5 RDS/terminal servers and people sign in/out and it puts them on the server with the most availability.  No issues for a couple of years on that setup.

Starting a month ago, users are getting Device Activation Limit Reached prompts when they sign in, not always, but once-in-a-while whereas before it never happened.  It makes sense, but I'm curious about 2 things:

1) Why this didn't happen before for the last couple of years on the same setup?

2) Does signing out of Windows on a device using Adobe Acrobat deactivate an instance?  If not, how does it deactivate not including going in manually and deleting a session?

Correct answer Anshul_Nautiyal

Hi @Nucleus38297422cmgv,

Thanks for reaching out and for outlining your RDS setup in detail.

Based on your description, the “Device Activation Limit Reached” prompt appears because Named User Licensing (NUL) allows each user to activate their Adobe license on up to two devices at a time. In an RDS or multi-session environment, each session host can appear to Adobe’s licensing system as a separate device. When profile or licensing data isn’t retained between sessions, Acrobat creates new activations on different hosts until the limit is reached.

To prevent this, Adobe recommends deploying Acrobat using Named User Licensing with profile redirection enabled.

Regarding your second question, signing out of Windows does not deactivate an Adobe device. Deactivation only occurs when the user signs out from within Acrobat or the Creative Cloud Desktop app, or when another device is signed out remotely through the activation-limit dialog.

For more details, you can refer to this document: https://adobe.ly/48Pu8It

Hope this helps. Let us know if you need further assistance.

 

Regards,
^AN

2 replies

ewaldb45115194
ewaldb45115194
Participant
January 30, 2026

Hi Anshul_Nautiyal

Sorry, but currently with the new NGL (New Generation Licensing) module that is now being deployed with the Adobe Acrobat Unified Installer - which is said to be the only supported Installer in RDS Environments - the instruction provided in the document mentioned by you (https://adobe.ly/48Pu8It) doesn’t lead to the desired result anymore.
No matter what I do, currently we hit this 2 device limit in our RDS Environment.

  • Setup.exe /sALL /msi ROAMIDENTITY=1 ROAMLICENSING=1
  • [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Adobe\Licensing\UserSpecificLicensing]"Enabled"="1" (REG_SZ)[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Adobe\Identity\UserSpecificIdentity]"Enabled"="1" (REG_SZ)

All done. Doesn’t work.

We use FSLogix profiles. 
Redirections.xml includes:

    <Include>AppData\Local\Adobe</Include>
    <Include>AppData\Local\Adobe\OOBE</Include>
    <Include>AppData\Local\Adobe\Acrobat</Include>
    <Include>AppData\Local\Adobe\SLData</Include>
    <Include>AppData\Local\Adobe\SLStore</Include>
    <Include>AppData\Local\Adobe\Identity</Include>
    <Include>AppData\Local\Adobe\NGL</Include>
    <Include>AppData\Local\Adobe\licflags</Include>
    <Include>AppData\LocalLow\Adobe</Include>
    <Include>AppData\Roaming\Adobe</Include>

Doesn’t matter.

The users are currently still asked to log in each time they connect to another RDS Host and start Adobe Acrobat.
And then they have to remove devices from the device list before they are able to use Adobe Acrobat.

SDL is not an option in virtual environments. So right now we are stuck with this unbearable situation in our RDS environment.

 

A
Community Manager
Anshul_NautiyalCommunity Manager
Community Manager
January 30, 2026


Hi ​@ewaldb45115194 

 

Thank you for the detailed information shared.

To further understand the behavior you’re seeing with NGL in your RDS environment, could you please confirm whether the image-based deployment steps outlined in the following document were followed during installation?
https://www.adobe.com/devnet-docs/acrobatetk/tools/VirtualizationGuide/remotedesktopservices.html?linkId=100000388942429#image-based-deployment

Additionally, please confirm the total number of RDS servers in your environment.

 

Regards,
^AN

A
Community Manager
Anshul_NautiyalCommunity ManagerCorrect answer
Community Manager
October 27, 2025

Hi @Nucleus38297422cmgv,

Thanks for reaching out and for outlining your RDS setup in detail.

Based on your description, the “Device Activation Limit Reached” prompt appears because Named User Licensing (NUL) allows each user to activate their Adobe license on up to two devices at a time. In an RDS or multi-session environment, each session host can appear to Adobe’s licensing system as a separate device. When profile or licensing data isn’t retained between sessions, Acrobat creates new activations on different hosts until the limit is reached.

To prevent this, Adobe recommends deploying Acrobat using Named User Licensing with profile redirection enabled.

Regarding your second question, signing out of Windows does not deactivate an Adobe device. Deactivation only occurs when the user signs out from within Acrobat or the Creative Cloud Desktop app, or when another device is signed out remotely through the activation-limit dialog.

For more details, you can refer to this document: https://adobe.ly/48Pu8It

Hope this helps. Let us know if you need further assistance.

 

Regards,
^AN

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