Acrobat XI Standard – activation limit reached, but Deactivate is greyed out on old PC

Update – I found a solution in my particular case

I was able to solve the problem, and this may be useful for other users with a similar installation.

The old computer also had Adobe Creative Suite 5.5 Design Premium installed and activated.

In Acrobat XI, Help > Deactivate was greyed out, so Acrobat itself could not be deactivated.

However, in Photoshop CS5.1, which was part of my Creative Suite 5.5 Design Premium installation, Help > Deactivate was available.

I selected Help > Deactivate in Photoshop. The deactivation dialog correctly identified the product as Creative Suite 5.5 Design Premium. I chose “Suspend Activation” / “Deactivate” to release the activation on the old computer.

After doing this, I was able to activate Creative Suite 5.5 Design Premium on the new computer successfully.

Interestingly, after this process Acrobat XI also stopped showing the activation-limit message on the new computer and now starts normally. In Acrobat XI, Help > Deactivate is now available as well.

So in my case, the solution was:

1. Do not try to deactivate Acrobat XI itself if “Deactivate” is greyed out.
2. If Acrobat is/was installed alongside an activated Creative Suite 5.5, open one of the CS5.5 applications such as Photoshop.
3. Choose Help > Deactivate there.
4. Confirm that the dialog shows Creative Suite 5.5 Design Premium.
5. Deactivate the old computer.
6. Activate Creative Suite 5.5 on the new computer.
7. Check Acrobat XI again.

This worked for me even though Acrobat XI itself could not initially be deactivated.

Of course, this solution probably only applies to systems where Creative Suite 5.5 and Acrobat XI share or interact with the legacy Adobe licensing components, but it may help someone in the same situation.