Adobe Acrobat DC shortcut keeps reappearing on desktop.

[ceriel26069959g8ml]

Is there an option to turn off this GRUESOMELY ANNOYING reappearing of this shortcut?
It does this at home and at work every so many weeks. At home I can just delete it, but at work I need to ask IT department every time to do this....

Is this just commercial branding?
What is the point of having this shortcut anyway?

[Formidable Leteh · Accepted solution]

I can verify that the Adobe Acrobat Reader updater no longer creates an Adobe Acrobat.lnk shortcut on the Desktop. I am glad, that they finally implemented this. I was tired of deleting it with a Scheduled Task:

AdobeAcrobatLnkDeleter.vbs

Set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Dim path
path = "C:\Users\Public\Desktop\Adobe Acrobat.lnk"

if fso.FileExists(path) then
    fso.DeleteFile path
end if

[brian-j]

I just checked for updates, updated to version 23.001.20174.0, and a shortcut was not created on my desktop.

I have never used the "Check for Updates" option to update Acrobat Reader, so I hope the installation process is the same when the app auto-updates and that the desktop icon is not created. Fingers crossed.

Note that recently an Adobe employee posted in this thread that version 23.01.20143 corrected the issue — that version did NOT correct the issue for me.

I appreciate Adobe support trying to help, but Adobe provided incorrect information multiple times in this thread. I don't know why this issue has been so difficult for Adobe to understand, or why we were told multiple times the issue was resolved, when it was not.

If the issue is truly resolved now, that would be great.

[czflex]

OMG, cannot believe Adobe is still doing this annoying thing. Who needs or wants or ever c;icked on Adobe Reader icon on the desktop right? This is not how this app is used IMO. I swiched to some non-Adobe alternative because of this sh*t decades ago! Not kidding, 20 years agi minimum!  I installed Reader again  recently and here I am, googling this for an answer again. Truly cannot believe this is happening. I hate Adobe for this ignorace towards users, and I am not alone.

[Amal.]

Hi there

This issue is notified to our engineering team for review.

We will share more details as we get information from the engineering team.

Regards

Amal

[Void30351752odor]

[evana300175643lb4]

Hi Team, 

Checking here if there is fix for disabling Adobe desktop shortcut. 

Thanks,

Pranitha 

[hpadm]

Hi. The standard installer does not offer the traditional GUI checkboxes to create a desktop shortcut and start menu items. If you want Adobe to let you easily turn off the desktop shortcut, this should probably be the change to ask for.

To achieve this with the current version of Adobe Acrobat Reader DC, you need to use a full enterprise installer together with a matching version of the Acrobat Customization Wizard utility, which creates an .mst (Microsoft Installer Transform) file containing the desired modifications, and integrates it via a modification to the setup.ini file. You then need to reinstall Adobe Reader using setup.exe. The transform file will be remembered under  C:\Windows\Installer and will reapply for all future updates. Except that for over a year, this was bugged and the desktop shortcut would be recreated after each update anyway. This was apparently fixed in april 2023.

The full procedure is as follows:

1. Obtain full installer. For business use, fill out the Distribution License form to instantly get a link. Otherwise, just web search for 'adobe reader enterprise installer'. The 64bit offline installer is only available for 'All Languages-MUI', so I instead intercepted the standard online 64bit installer's 7zip download in C:\ProgramData\Adobe\Temp.
2. Install a matching version of the Acrobat Customization Wizard.
3. Unpack installer exe using 7zip, or by using the installer commandline -sfx_ne -sfx_o"<path>".
4. In the Wizard, use Open Package, then in Shortcuts remove the Desktop icon, then use Save Package. (There are also other useful changes you can make.)
5. Remove any previous installations and install the new custom package.

[ls_rbls]

Thank you for going through this hassle.

Much appreciated!

[cpo2801260913bf]

We have customized, deployed the app but each time, when we upgrade the adobe via patch, this reappears. 

[Amal.]

Hi @cpo2801260913bf 

Would you mind sharing the version of the application and the OS you are using.  To check the version go to Help > About Acrobat and make sure you have the recent version 23.03.20215 installed. Go to Help > Check for updates and reboot the computer once.

Would you mind collecting the Adobe CC logs https://helpx.adobe.com/creative-cloud/kb/cc-log-collector.html , Procmon logs (Win Only) https://www.adobe.com/devnet-docs/acrobatetk/tools/Labs/acromonitor.html  and share them via any cloud storage. Just upload the log file to the cloud, generate the link, and share that link with us for further investigation.

Regards
Amal

[Mike35497488gnun]

Hi,

Sorry to reply a couple years after this post. Elsewhere in a similar thread to this (there are many; Adobe is quite tone deaf on this issue it seems) that one shouldn't have to follow an enterprise deployment procedure to get rid of a stupid desktop shortcut.

But, if you have indeed followed this procedure, what is the delta in the registry? Might it be one silly DWORD somewhere that tells Acrobat Reader to stop with the narcissistic shortcut creation? If so, would you kindly post it here?

[JoshNoe]

Just want to reiterate this has still not been fixed. The only way to prevent Adobe Acrobat from installing an icon on your desktop continously is to uninstall Adobe Acrobat (reccomended).

[Amal.]

Hi there

We are sorry to hear that the issue still appears.

Would you mind collecting the Adobe CC logs https://helpx.adobe.com/creative-cloud/kb/cc-log-collector.html , Procmon logs (Win Only) https://www.adobe.com/devnet-docs/acrobatetk/tools/Labs/acromonitor.html  and share them via any cloud storage. Just upload the log file to the cloud, generate the link, and share that link with us for further investigation.

Regards
Amal

[Andy348884202cm2]

Just to add more insult to this ridculus process - every time the automatic updater runs it not only creates a new deskstop shortcut, it deletes the old one first so the the new one is not where you left it.
I have now reached the point where to avoid futher fustrastion I am deleting Acrobat from my pc - will find an alternative that plays nicely.

[Paul36269568c0b6]

I find that my desktop shortcut for the reader keeps moving when I reboot my PC. Dammed annoying.