AdobeARM keeps asking for admin access when opening Adobe Acrobat

Question

I have a Windows 11 pro computer and I am having an issue with Adobe asking for a password to access AdobeARM.exe every time I open Adobe Acrobat.

I have tried repairing Adobe Acrobat and Creative Cloud. I have uninstalled Adobe Acrobat and Creative Cloud. I ran the Adobe uninstall tool and Adobe CC Cleaner. I reinstalled it and still got the same error message.

I tried giving the user read and write permissions for the user to the C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\ARM\1.0\AdobeARM.exe and still get asked for the admin credentials.

I tried disabling the Adobe update service.

In the multiple times I have reinstalled Adobe I did try removing Adobe folders from the computer and still get the error message.

I also tried creating a new deployment package from the Admin Console and installing it as well and I get the same request for admin credentials.

The computer is a domain environment and all users are setup as standard user rights. None of the other Adobe users are having this issue.

Anything else I can try?

Tariq Dar · Answer

Hi @Kevin S. Peterson,

Thanks for reporting this!

The prompt for admin access when launching Acrobat usually points to AdobeARM.exe being set to run with elevated privileges.

To fix it:

Go to: C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Adobe\ARM\1.0\AdobeARM.exe
Right-click > Properties > Compatibility.
Make sure “Run this program as administrator” is unchecked.

Also, you may want to repair Acrobat via Help > Repair Installation to ensure no corruption is causing the issue.

Let us know if the prompt still appears afterward — we’re here to dig deeper if needed!

Also, let us know the processor make and model.

~Tariq

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