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Angelic_fashion0fc4
Participant
October 14, 2026
Answered

Trouble with re-licence Adobe Acrobat 2017/2022 after reinstallation all PCs in company without previous deaktivation licences.

Hello, We have trouble with activation our older Adobe Acrobat Standard 2017 and 2020 and Professional 2020. We were just reinstalling all comuters in company and we could'n deactivate licences before. We found only the 2017 Pro version in some account admin@xxxx.cz, but there in list of activated devices (it is empty). And for the 2nd one we have only printscreen with serial number from date, we bought that licences from Adobe website. Can you please, deactivate somehow these licence for use on reinstalled computers again? Thank you.

Martin.

    Randy Hagan
    Randy HaganCorrect answer
    Community Expert
    October 14, 2026

    You can chase this down, but I’m afraid you’d be spinning your wheels to no good effect.

     

    Even if you could somehow find someone at Adobe Systems to translate those serial numbers into registered owners, activation servers for Acrobat 2020 were shut down a year ago. The ones for Acrobat 2017 were shut down four years ago. You can install them, but you can’t activate them to be able to use them again.

     

    Unfortunately, all those Acrobat Standard and Professional licenses are for obsolete software. I don’t speak for Adobe — I’m an end user, just like you. But I’m afraid you’re probably out of luck with that.

     

    Wish I had better news for you,

     

    Randy

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    4 replies

    jane-e
    Community Expert
    jane-eCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    October 14, 2026

    ​@Angelic_fashion0fc4 wrote: Can you please, deactivate somehow these licence

     

    In addition to what Randy said, Adobe does not reset activations.

     

    Jane

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      Randy Hagan
      Community Expert
      Randy HaganCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
      Community Expert
      October 14, 2026

      You can chase this down, but I’m afraid you’d be spinning your wheels to no good effect.

       

      Even if you could somehow find someone at Adobe Systems to translate those serial numbers into registered owners, activation servers for Acrobat 2020 were shut down a year ago. The ones for Acrobat 2017 were shut down four years ago. You can install them, but you can’t activate them to be able to use them again.

       

      Unfortunately, all those Acrobat Standard and Professional licenses are for obsolete software. I don’t speak for Adobe — I’m an end user, just like you. But I’m afraid you’re probably out of luck with that.

       

      Wish I had better news for you,

       

      Randy

      Translate
      Angelic_fashion0fc4Author
      Participant
      October 15, 2026

      Thank you for reply. Actually I was able find one laptop with one Standard 2020 version. That app normaly works, so it must be activated. But there is no option how to deactivate the licence, nothing. I found many hints on websites how to do it. So as you wrote, it seems their servers for older versions of Acrobat does not works. From Adobe I think this is sting. We are buying (bought) something was presented as lifetime/permanent licence. How they can just stop it? Microsoft e.g. hold for Window XP or Office 2003 activations servers for more than 20 years! I know that product is old, but everything was even in that older version working perfectly.

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      Randy Hagan
      Community Expert
      Randy HaganCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      October 15, 2026

      You’ve pointed out the fallacy of the whole “perpetual licensing” construct.

       

      Adobe will not eliminate your existing installation of what it considers obsolete software. That’s there for as long as you leave it there. But the company will not let you reassign that license. It sucks, but Adobe Systems is not alone in looking at it that way.

       

      Randy

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