Adobe very slow when select print option

Hi ​@defaultipzyx18gn6ez, 

Thank you for the detailed description — the consistency across multiple devices and the Pro-vs-Reader difference are both useful signals, and they point in a clear direction.

Why Pro is more affected:

This is expected behaviour rather than a bug. When Acrobat Pro opens the printer properties dialog, it runs a significantly heavier initialisation sequence than Reader does. Pro, by contrast, initialises its full print production toolkit: it queries each installed printer for PostScript capabilities, loads ICC colour profiles for colour management, pre-processes any transparency in the document, and routes all printer driver communication through its Protected Mode sandbox via an IPC bridge.

Any one of these steps can become a bottleneck depending on the environment. The most common causes we see in practice are:

• A large number of mapped network printers (Pro queries PostScript capabilities on all of them, not just the default)
• Older V3 kernel-mode printer drivers interacting slowly with the Protected Mode IPC bridge
•  ICC profile loading on documents with complex colour spaces
•  A bloated or stalled Windows Print Spooler queue

Troubleshooting — TRY IN ORDER
 

Step 1 — Confirm with Print as Image (immediate workaround)

File > Print > Advanced > tick "Print as Image" > OK > Print

This forces the flat raster path that Reader uses, bypassing PostScript processing, transparency handling, and colour management. If printing becomes fast in this mode, the bottleneck is confirmed to be in Pro's rendering/initialisation pipeline. This also gives you a working interim fix while the root cause is addressed.

Step 2 — Clear the Print Spooler

Run as administrator:

   net stop spooler
   del /Q /F /S "%SystemRoot%\System32\spool\PRINTERS\*"
   net start spooler

A stuck spooler queue stalls the printer enumeration step that Pro runs at dialog open. If this resolves it and the issue recurs, a scheduled nightly spooler clear is the operational fix.

Step 3 — Count mapped printers on affected machines

   Get-Printer | Measure-Object | Select-Object Count

If users have more than 15–20 printers mapped (common in enterprise GPO environments), Pro's per-printer PostScript capability query is almost certainly a primary contributor. Reducing mapped printers to only those actively needed, or using printer location awareness via GPO, is the correct fix here.

Step 4 — Disable colour management for printing

File > Print > Advanced > Colour Management > No Colour Management

For environments where colour accuracy is not a requirement (standard office printing), this removes ICC profile loading from the print initialisation sequence and is safe to deploy globally via GPO.

Step 5 — Check printer driver generation

   Get-PrinterDriver | Select-Object Name, MajorVersion | Sort-Object MajorVersion

MajorVersion 3 = legacy V3 driver (kernel-mode). MajorVersion 4 = V4 driver (user-mode). V3 drivers interact with Pro's Protected Mode sandbox through a compatibility layer that adds round-trip latency. If V3 drivers are present, test with the Microsoft Universal Print Driver in PCL6 mode as a V4 substitute. If performance improves, updating to V4 drivers is the correct long-term fix.

Step 6 — Test with Protected Mode disabled (diagnostic only, not a permanent fix)

Preferences > Security (Enhanced) > uncheck Enable Protected Mode at startup > restart Acrobat

If the dialog becomes fast, the bottleneck is the sandbox IPC path interacting with older drivers. Re-enable Protected Mode after confirming and address via driver updates. Do not leave Protected Mode disabled in production without a security assessment.

Step 7 — Test without third-party plug-ins

Hold Shift while launching Acrobat to start in plug-in bypass mode. If printing is fast, a third-party plug-in hooking the print workflow is the cause. Re-enable plug-ins one at a time to identify it.

Could you also confirm:

1. Your Acrobat version (Help > About, or run: reg query "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Adobe\Adobe Acrobat\DC" /v BuildNum)
2. Windows Server / Windows version on affected machines
3. Approximate number of printers mapped per user session
4. Whether the hang is specifically on opening the printer properties dialog, or on the document rendering/spooling step after confirming print settings

That last point is important — a hang at dialog open points to the enumeration/initialisation steps (Steps 3–5 above), while a hang after clicking Print points to the rendering pipeline (Step 1 is the fastest diagnostic for that).

Also, help us with the diagnostic logs from one of the affected machines:

To collect the logs:

1. Download and run the Diagnostics Utility from:  https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/kb/acrobat-diagnostics.html
2. Click on Start Diagnostics. Ensure advanced logging is checked.
3. Launch Acrobat, reproduce the issue with your file.
4. Once done, click Stop Monitoring.
5. Copy the Log ID and share it with us.

Happy to go deeper on any of these once we know which step reproduces it.

~Tariq