Never been able to get Privileged Locations to work.

Hi ​@TheRealbigE ​@Ethan+Fitzgerald 

Sorry for the inconvenience caused at your end.

To clarify, If any location is not working for Protected Mode, adding to privileged locations will not help. Privileged location is the location which is applicable for Protected View and not Protected Mode.

To investigate further why the file opening from specified path is not working at your end in Protected Mode ON and help with a possible solution we need few logs from your end:

1. Acrobat Diagnostic Logs - https://helpx.adobe.com/in/acrobat/kb/acrobat-diagnostics.html
2. Protected Mode logs: 
   • Launch Acrobat 
   • Open preferences dialog using Ctrl+K 
   • Go to Security (Enhanced) preferences
   • Check “Create Protected Mode Log File”
   • Close Acrobat and now open the problematic file from network location.
   • Access Denied error might have occurred. 
   • Got to Security(Enhanced) preferences again and select View log.
   • Save and share the logs.

Thanks,

Shakti K

​@TheRealbigE I am facing this same issue. Did you ever find a solution?

Meenakshi,

Thank you for responding. We’re on the latest Windows 11 and Adobe Reader. It works when calling the pdf file using a direct url “file:////server/xyz/123.pdf”.  But when my application sends a windows event call “odoc” to open up, then the access denies happens.  So, the problem is that Adobe Reader doesn’t have a mechanism to allow for another windows program to command it open (which it does launch) and also read a pdf.   So, it’s a “CreateProcess” limitation or protection.

Hi TheRealbigE,

Thank you for reaching out, and sorry for the trouble caused.

Privileged Locations can work, but there are some important limitations and configuration requirements when using network paths with Acrobat’s Protected Mode enabled.

As it is not working in your case, please try the following to check:

1. As a quick isolation step, test with a local copy:

• Copy the PDF locally on the desktop.

• Then, open it in Acrobat.

If it works locally but not from the share, the issue is almost certainly tied to Protected Mode + network trust handling.

2. Ensure that you add the exact network path correctly.

• In Acrobat, go to Menu > Preferences > Security (Enhanced) > Privileged Locations

• Try adding:
  \\server\xyz\

• Also test using a mapped drive letter instead, for example:
  Z:\

3. Enterprise environments
If this is happening in a managed/corporate environment, admins sometimes need to configure trusted locations via:

• Adobe Customization Wizard

• Registry policies

• Windows Group Policy

because user-added privileged locations may be overridden by enterprise security settings.

Let us know how it goes.

Thanks,

Meenakshi