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Majestic_Charm7ced
Participant
August 10, 2026
Question

Titel: Digitale IDs und gespeicherte Signatur nach Windows In-Place-Upgrade von 22H2/23H2 auf 25H2 gelöscht

  • August 10, 2026
  • 3 replies
  • 79 views

Hello,

we are experiencing an issue with digital signatures in Adobe Acrobat/Reader after performing a Windows in-place upgrade.

Our environment:

  • Windows clients currently running Windows 22H2 or 23H2
  • In-place upgrade to Windows 25H2
  • The upgrade is performed using a Windows ISO through Baramundi
  • Users have created their own Digital ID in Adobe
  • They created the Digital ID via "Use a Digital ID" → "Use a Digital ID" / "Sign"
  • As the storage method, they selected the Windows Certificate Store
  • In addition, each user configured their scanned handwritten signature as the signature appearance in Adobe

During testing of the in-place upgrade to Windows 25H2, we noticed that after the upgrade, the previously configured digital signatures are no longer available in Adobe.

Our goal is to ensure that users can continue using their existing Digital ID and signature appearance after the Windows upgrade without having to set everything up again manually.

We would therefore like to know:

  1. Why are the existing Digital ID/signature settings or signature appearances removed during the Windows in-place upgrade?
  2. Is there a way to preserve the existing Digital ID and the associated scanned signature image during the upgrade?
  3. Are there specific Adobe files, folders, registry keys, or settings that need to be backed up before the upgrade and restored afterwards?
  4. Since the Digital ID is stored in the Windows Certificate Store, is there a recommended way to ensure that both the certificate and the associated Adobe signature appearance remain available after the upgrade?
  5. Is there an Adobe-recommended solution for managing this scenario centrally across many corporate PCs?

We would like to avoid having all users manually recreate their Digital ID and scanned signature after the Windows 25H2 upgrade.

    3 replies

    A
    Community Manager
    AnkitVermaCommunity Manager
    Community Manager
    August 11, 2026

    Hi ​@Majestic_Charm7ced,

    Thanks for the detailed write-up. The goal is clear: get your users through the 25H2 in-place upgrade without rebuilding their Digital ID and signature appearance by hand.

    On why this happens: the two pieces sit in two different places, neither inside Acrobat's own storage. The signature appearance (the scanned image) lives in a file called appearances.acrodata at C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Acrobat\<version>\Security. The Digital ID lives in the Windows Certificate Store, since that's the storage method your users chose. Because both sit outside Acrobat, whether they survive depends on what the Windows upgrade does to those locations, which is why they can go missing afterward. The reliable fix is to export them beforehand and reimport after.

    Here's the approach:

    1. Digital ID and signing settings: In Acrobat, go to Preferences > Security > Security Settings > Export to save everything (digital ID data, trust, and signing preferences) to a single secured file. After the upgrade, use Import in the same place. Note that some components like PKCS#11 modules must be reinstalled manually, though that usually won't apply to a standard Windows Certificate Store ID.

    2. Signature appearance: Back up each user's appearances.acrodata file before the upgrade and restore it to the same path afterward. This preserves the scanned signature without recreating it.

    3. Across many machines: The exported settings file can be placed on a server for clients to download automatically, and Adobe's Customization Wizard can deploy these files as part of a managed configuration, so you're not touching each PC by hand.

    Full details here:

    One note: how the Windows Certificate Store itself is handled during the in-place upgrade is governed by Windows rather than Acrobat, so your deployment team may also want to confirm how your 25H2 ISO process treats user-installed certificates. Exporting from Acrobat first covers you either way.

    Please give this a try in your test ring and let us know how it goes, we're happy to help further.

    Thanks,
    ^AV

    M
    Majestic_Charm7cedAuthor
    Participant
    August 12, 2026

    Hallo ​@AnkitVerma,

    Thank you for your response.

    I tried to export the security settings, but unfortunately I was not able to do so because the Export option is greyed out and cannot be selected. I am using the latest version of Adobe Acrobat, and I also tried running Adobe Acrobat as administrator, but the Export option is still disabled.
    I have another question regarding a possible approach we are considering.

    Before performing the Windows in-place upgrade, we would back up the user's existing scanned handwritten signatures that they currently use in Adobe.

    After the upgrade, we would issue and distribute new user certificates through our internal CA server and restore the previously backed-up scanned handwritten signatures to the corresponding Adobe Acrobat Security folder:

    `C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Acrobat\<version>\Security`

    The goal is to use the CA-issued certificate together with the user's previously backed-up scanned handwritten signature

     so that the user can  immediately continue digitally signing documents without having to configure anything themselves in Adobe Acrobat.

    Would this work?

    Or would the certificates issued by our internal CA server still have to be manually added/linked to Adobe Acrobat as a Digital ID by each user? And would the restored scanned signature also have to be manually associated with the new Digital ID?

    In other words, is there a way to automate the complete process so that after the Windows upgrade:

    the user's CA-issued certificate is available as a Digital ID in Adobe Acrobat,
    the user's previously backed-up scanned handwritten signature is available as the signature appearance, and
    the user can immediately sign documents without any manual configuration?

    Thank you again for your help.

     

    Picture of the Security Settings


     

    T
    Community Manager
    Tariq Ahmad DarCommunity Manager
    Community Manager
    August 12, 2026

    Hi ​@Majestic_Charm7ced, 
     

    Thank you for the detailed follow-up and for thinking through the automation workflow so thoroughly. That approach makes complete sense if the certificates and appearance files are genuinely gone after the upgrade.

    However before investing in that restore process, it is worth a quick check first. An in-place Windows upgrade as we know is designed to preserve user certificates in the Windows Certificate Store and AppData files like appearances.acrodata. In many cases, after an upgrade, these files and certificates are still present on the machine, but Acrobat has simply lost its reference to them, which is a much simpler fix than a full restore workflow.

    To confirm whether that is the case here, please do the following:

    Press Windows + R, type certmgr.msc and press Enter. Navigate to Personal > Certificates and look for a certificate with your name on it. This is the Digital ID you originally created in Acrobat.

    If it is there, you can reconnect it to Acrobat without recreating anything. Go to Edit > Preferences > Signatures > Identities and Trusted Certificates > More > Digital IDs, click Add ID and select My existing digital ID from Windows Certificate Store. Acrobat will scan the store and surface your certificate.

    Please also check whether appearances.acrodata still exists at C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Acrobat\<version>\Security. If it is there, restarting Acrobat after reconnecting the Digital ID should restore your signature appearance as well.

    Please let us know what you find and we will take it from there, including the backup and restore workflow for your remaining users if needed.


    ~Tariq

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