Acrobat refuses to perform action w/o "permission from administrator," which is me

Report · Sep 13, 2022

Recently, I began to receive a message from Acrobat when I try to delete a PDF document I have created. The message:
You need permission to perform this action.
You require permission from the computer’s administrator to make changes to this file.
I am the only user of this computer and of my Adobe membership. The computer's Windows 10 OS identifies me as an (the) administrator. I only began getting this message from Acrobat recently and don't know how or why (I've used Acrobat since 2019 on this machine and was able to freely delete and move files after creating them). Can I adjust Acrobat's own settings to make myself an "administrator" for its purposes? If so, how? If anyone can offer help, I'd be grateful.

Report · Sep 13, 2022

Is this only happening with one file in particular or any PDF file?

Also, is this happening regardless of which folder the PDF is saved in?

I've seen this behavior in Windows 10 before. It may be that the file reside in a folder that inherited more restrictive permissions, i which case, the Administrator is the process or the system policy that owns it; not the actual Admin user.

If that would be the case, for troubleshooting purposes, you may try the following:

click on the start button (windows logo) and type in "msconfig" to open up the System Configuration utility
pay attention to the General tab of that System Configuration Utility dialogue window
re-enable all Windows services that run at startup, and reboot
Upon reboot, you may want to double-check the msconfig utility again, but this time see the "Services" tab and take notes of Windows system services that may not be running... you may need to re-enable these manually

Report · Sep 14, 2022

Thanks so much for your suggestion! I tried it, and for now at least
Acrobat is allowing me to delete and move documents normally. I really
appreciate your taking the time to provide guidance. Thanks again.

--

Robert C. Owen (he/him/his)
Law Office of Robert C. Owen, LLC
P.O. Box 607425
Chicago, IL 60660-7381
(512) 577-8329 voice

Admitted to practice in Illinois and Texas

Report · Sep 14, 2022

You're very welcome.