Acrobat 2017 Standard Error: unable to find adobe pdf resource files acrobat pdfmaker

[samgmbnet]

The following message is display when trying to create a PDF from Word 2016 on Windows 10

Acrobat Version 2017.011.30078 

"Unable to find "Adobe PDF" resource files.

"Acrobat PDFmaker"

Your must have Administrator Privileges to install these files."

The user is a member of the Local Administrator Group.

[DennisB82B]

I just had this problem happen today (February 11, 2021), on a ~ 1 year old Lenovo desktop workstation, running Windows 10 Pro (x64 system), and MS Office Home & Business 2019 (full purchased license) and Adobe Standard 2017 (full purchased license).  All the main MS programs (Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook) came up with the same error message.  Absolutely nothing changed with my computer since yesterday (when all was working), so I don't know why the malfunction occurred in the first place.

I tried both a soft and cold re-boot of the computer (nothing changed), used Acrobat's 'Check for Updates' function (which indicated everything was up to date), and also tried Acrobat's 'Repair Installation' function from the Help menu -- and no change.

Checking on-line, the safest option seemed to be to uninstall and re-install Adobe Acrobat (I don't have the skills necessary to go mucking around the registry keys, etc.).  I did the uninstall from the Windows Control Panel, which then required a soft re-boot (i.e. Restart), and then went over the internet (via MS Edge) to download a new copy, and followed the installation instructions available on-line from Adobe's website.  I did have to 'authorize' changes to my computer during the installation process because of my security program's firewalls (i.e. BitDefender), but that seemed to go through a-ok.  When I launched Adobe Acrobat the first time, I did have to indicate that I wanted the plug-ins to be activated.  It's up and running again, and a quick check using both Word and Outlook showed that the plug-ins from the main menu bar for those two programs are now working.

Note that I did register my product when I received my computer originally, and kept a record of both the redemption code and serial number -- you'll need the latter to download a new copy.  Adobe's website, once you find the right page, does have 'Uninstall and Reinstall' instructions available, and my process worked without having to use the Acrobat Cleaner Tool utility.

I'm responding to this particular post as I didn't see any others on-line that referenced Windows 10 and Adobe Acrobat 2017 simultaneously.  Hope this helps.

[mike5C5E]

I am a Tech and I have had 3 different users with this exact issue in Windows 10 Pro v20H2. I have tried the Registry fixes, uninstall/reinstall/repair. I have done a Office repais as well. The add-in is always showing as "inactive" in Office 2016. The users can print to PDF--which they are doing until I find the issue. I do get the dialog box asking to re-enable the add-in but it never fixes the issue.

[DennisB82B]

Hi Mike,

Yes - before I did the uninstall / reinstall process, a dialog box in Acrobat (when the program launched) indicated that some plug-ins were inactive, and if I wanted to activate them, which I did indicate, but it never did fix the issue (at least during all the times I tried to fix the issue before uninstalling the program).

Within the Office programs, both Word and Excel (as well as PowerPoint) had the plug-in option showing up in the top menu bar, but selecting it gave me the original error message (that's the subject of this thread).  The plug-in for Outlook however 'disappeared' at some point, that I didn't notice until later.

As I'm not a computer expert, I'm not sure what I can suggest for the cases you're working on, except to try anotehr uninstall, however then additionally trying to run the Acrobat Cleaner Tool utility (available on-line), before re-installing again - I believe this is Adobe's recommendation where there are uninstall issues.  The difference I see between your clients and my situation is that I'm running Office 2019 (versus 2016).   The location where I obtained the uninstall / reinstallation instructions was:

How to uninstall and reinstall Acrobat DC (adobe.com)

Hope this helps.

[default1xydxv9oi4pw]

I have 20 computers that all began having the error above starting on Feb 11, 2021. All of the computers are Windows 10 20H2 with Adobe Acrobat 2017 Standard and Office 2019. I have done all of the troubleshooting steps and the issue is caused when Adobe updates to 17.011.30190. 17.011.30188 does not experience the issue.

If you uninstall the whole Adobe product and update only to 17.011.30188, the Adobe PDF Maker will work. As soon as you update to 17.011.30190 again, PDFMaker breaks. Adobe did not acknowledge this as a bug when i spoke with support.

Kyle

[Tariq Dar · Accepted solution]

Hi all,

Thank you for reaching out. This issue is known to us and we are working towards the fix. 
Sorry for the inconvenience caused. 

We have found users who are experiencing this issue are missing Microsoft Runtime VC++ from the machine, please use this link: https://aka.ms/vs/16/release/vc_redist.x64.exe to install this version of runtime on the machine. This is required for this feature to work. If this doesn't help to fix the issue immediately after the installation, please reboot your machine once and try again.

Let us know how this work for you. Thank you for your patience and for reporting this to us.

~Tariq

[default1xydxv9oi4pw]

Thanks for the update! It's nice to know just that the issue's recognized. I had tried to repair some C++ components in my troubleshooting but I will follow your link/directions and update you. Thanks again.

Kyle

[default1xydxv9oi4pw]

I just confirmed that installing the C++ 2015-2019 Redistributable does resolve the issue!

I had other C++ redistributables but was missing the 2015-2019 one. I will roll out the C++ package to the other PCs. Thanks for the update.

Kyle

[mike5C5E]

Thank you, this fixed our errors!!

[mike5C5E]

I'd like to add to this, when the problem occured in Microsoft Word I just had to install the update then open Word and it worked. When I installed the update on another PC having issues with Outlook I had to close Outlook, open Acrobat and wait for the promt to enable the PDMaker add-in and enable it. Then open Outlook back up. I hope this helps!

[TanviRastogi]

Hi

This issue has been resolved in latest Acrobat 2017 patch. Please go to Help > Check for Updates to get the latest patch.

Thanks

Tanvi