Reader 9.0 AcroRd32.exe caused Microsoft Visual C++ Runtime Library error

[_AndrewLippett_]

A client has updated Adobe Reader 8.1 to 9.0 on several machines and now cannot use Adobe Reader.

The program start, the Adobe Reader window appears but no document and then an error message is displayed that says;

"Microsoft Visual C++ Runtime Library
Program: C:\Program Files\Adobe\Reader 9.0\Reader\AcroRd32.exe
This application has requested the runtime to terminate in an unusual
way.
Please contact the applications support team for mor information."

Adobe Reader has been removed, the computer restarted and then re-installed from a full installation package and the problem persists.

Does anyone have any ideas how to fix this?

[Guest]

As users with roaming profiles, it is a very important issue to you. 
However, in the scheme of things, it may not be very important to the 
overall user base. If this is a problem for your company, have everyone 
in your company report the bug in the Adobe Bug report form. The more 
users they know are effected, the more likely it will be fixed. Believe 
me if IBM, ATT or the DOD had the problem, it would be fixed ASAP. Your 
company needs to help make it an important issue to Adobe.

[Chad73-H84PpD]

NICE ATTITUDE!

[Guest]

Kevin,
I have the LocalLow folder in the directory you reference. It doesn't seem to make things any better. It's funny I can use Reader 9.0 if I'm logged into my Administrator account (I don't get the Visual C++ error), but not my User account. Has anyone else noticed this?

[_Jonathan_Mercier_]

Same thing for me Tony Bosco. The LocalLow folder exist and i can only start acrobat reader 9 on my terminal server (windows 2008 enterprise) if i'm logged-in as an administrator. If I try to start it as a user, I get Visual C++ Runtime Library error.

[Guest]

I have to be able to read PDFs so I went to the Foxit site that Bill Kov referenced and downloaded the program. It seems to work great and it's very fast. Good luck.
Hopefully Adobe will get on with a fix to this crazy problem.

[_Stan_Gibson_]

Maybe now that this has happened (see below) they will step it up a bit on 9.1.

http://www.adobe.com/support/security/advisories/apsa09-01.html

[~graffiti]

> Maybe now that this has happened (see below) they will step it up a bit on 9.1.

Maybe but, they may need to rush 9.1 out the door to deal with the security issue and not get some of the planned fixes done in time.

Then we'll have to wait for 9.2.

[_Ethan_Connor_]

I'm not sure which is worse, having to wait for yet another version to see this issue fixed, or knowing full well that this is a trivial fix that they can easily throw into a security related rush job.

[Guest]

Does the update fix this issue?

http://www.adobe.com/support/security/bulletins/apsb09-03.html

[_Ethan_Connor_]

I'll test it soon... But the release notes make me nervous:

"Roaming Profiles on Windows and Networked Home Directory on Macintosh are not supported configurations for 9.0 or 9.1, however we have made several fixes in 9.1. We are looking at the possibility of supporting this for the next major release."

[_Stan_Gibson_]

I have tested it in my environment and it seems to be working. I upgraded an group policy install of 8.1.2 to 9.1 using another group policy install with MSTs made with the customization wizard. Logging in as a user that has a redirected application data folder and launching the reader application does not throw the c++ error. Verified it was using the new version. Still prolimenary testing, but thus far seems like good news.....hope it lasts. If any one runs into any other conclusions please let me know.

Thanks

[_Ethan_Connor_]

Preliminary testing - clean install Acrobat Pro 9.0 from media, and immediately installing the 9.1.0 update prior to launching acrobat works for users with GP redirected App_Data folders.

Similar Acrobat Reader 8.1.3 to 9.1 upgrade using GP application assignment and customized transform for our environment also worked, in the lab...

... Seems to work enough to warrant wide scale testing by those who have encountered the problem. Silly that it "is not supported" according to the release notes.

[_Stan_Gibson_]

They are doing that so when it does not work in the future there can be no call for action on the end users part.

[_James_Schlackman_]

It seems the future is now. Deploying Acrobat Pro 9.1 via GPO still exhibits the exact same problem on our systems. Not impressed.

[_Kuniyasu_]

Here is a suggestion.
If you checked "Update Automatically"(I'm not sure what English vesion say, beacause I'm using Japanese version), do not check it.
I think that Adeobe Reader V9.1 faild when it checks updates.
At least, it fixed the problem in my case.

[_crhosu_]

"They are doing that so when it does not work in the future there can be no call for action on the end users part."

Exactly. Now that they have a disclaimer, we can't blame them for their incompetence. I'm sticking with 8 anywhere I have users with roaming profiles (most of my organization).

[_MB_Hendriks_]

I have added these two Key's (through a preference, windows setting)
REG ADD "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\software\Microsoft\windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders" /v AppData /t REG_EXPAND_SZ /d "t:\%username%\Application Data" /f
REG ADD "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\software\Microsoft\windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders" /v AppData /t REG_EXPAND_SZ /d "t:\%username%\Application Data" /f

As described on this site: http://www.experts-exchange.com/OS/Microsoft_Operating_Systems/Server/Windows_Server_2008/Q_23611727.html

After that it still did not work. I then changed the compatibillity for all users to Windows XP (Service Pack 2).
Now Adobe Reader works

[_Luke_Murphy82_]

Hey everyone, there is a posted solution on adobe's website that finally fixes this annoyance! I am pleased to give this info for all of you that were experiencing this with redirection/roaming profiles! =)

http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=kb404597&sliceId=2

Enjoy!

Issue

When you start Adobe Acrobat 9 (Standard, Pro, Pro Extended) or Adobe Reader 9, a runtime error occurs:

"Microsoft Visual C++ Debug Library
Runtime Error!
Program: C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 9.0\Acrobat\Acrobat.exe
The application has requested the Runtime to terminate it in an unusual way. Please contact the application's support team for more information. "
Reason

The affected user has a redirected Application Data folder and as a result the network path containing the Application Data uses a UNC path that begins with \\. This UNC path causes Acrobat 9.0 or Adobe Reader 9.0 to incorrectly parse the Application Data path and give the error message.
Solution

Please update Acrobat and/or Reader to Adobe Acrobat 9.1 or Adobe Reader 9.1.

[JTFuhler]

This error occurs on Microsoft Active Directory networks when folder redirection is used to redirect user’s “Application Data” folder AND inappropriate sharing and/or security settings are applied to the network share. This error will occur when a user’s redirected folder security settings have been modified by an administrator to grant the administrator access to the user’s home folders.

In order to resolve the error you should restore the missing security permissions to your home directories. To find out if this note can be of assistance to you pick a user who is having the error and temporarily assign them to the domain administrator’s group and have them logon. If you are using version 9.3 of the program and it begins to work correctly when they are in the administrator’s group, read on. Otherwise, good luck and sorry I couldn’t help you out.

As a reference Microsoft provides guidance in KB 274443 under the section titled “Create security-enhanced redirected folders” and in KB 288991 under the section titled “To set security on the shared folders in Windows Server 2003”

If you followed the direction in KB288991 you have most likely removed several security settings from your original configuration which should be restored in order for the Adobe product to work correctly.

KB 288991 lists the required security in part, for authenticated users as;

Create Folders / Append Data

Read Permissions

Read Attributes

Read Extended Attributes

And KB 274443 lists the same section of permissions as;

Everyone - Create Folder/Append Data (Apply onto: This Folder Only)

Everyone - List Folder/Read Data (Apply onto: This Folder Only)

Everyone - Read Attributes (Apply onto: This Folder Only)

Everyone - Traverse Folder/Execute File (Apply onto: This Folder Only)

Because I can not be responsible for any potential harm you may cause your network while trying to fix this, I can't tell you the answer but you might consider restoring the 2 missing permissions and see if that works.

[dflo1616]

WARNING: If your running Windows 7 in an AD environment with redirected folders and you have

added the admin account to your users redirected folders (and who doesn't, you need to do this if you want to back them up)

they will get this error and Adobe Reader 9.3 will NOT work.  You could go thru all the steps in trying to set the perms or better yet just rollback to Adobe Reader 8.x. No benefit in using 9. Or even better yet ditch Adobe Reader all together.

Why can't you just be windows compliant Adobe?

[Sambo_NZ]

Just called Adobe 'support', credit card at the ready, to pay for an support incident so that I could fix this freekin' C++ Runtime error...

Support: "I'm sorry sir, we don't support Adobe Reader"

Me: "Oh, I'm wanting to open a paid support incident for it"

Support: "I'm sorry sir, we don't offer paid support for Adobe Reader either"

Me: "..."

Me: "Sorry, just let me get this straight.  You don't offer support, not even paid incident support, for one of your products?"

Support: "No, I'm sorry sir, we don't"

Me: "..."

Me: "Right.  Thanks for your 'help'."

Anyway...

I have the same issue as the rest of you here, but I don't have a UNC path for my AppData folder.  However, I did find that the aforementioned AppData folder issue is causing the problem for me as well.

My setup is as follows:

- Adobe Reader v9.3

- 2x Windows 2008 Terminal Servers - TS1 & TS2

- Roaming Profiles

The issue for me would manifest in a really strange way.  If I logged onto TS1 as a new user (ie; no profile), I could run AR with no problems, but when I logged onto TS2, it crashed.  I thought it was an issue with TS2, but subsequent testing showed that if I logged into TS2 for the first time as a new user AR worked fine on TS2, but not on TS1!?

The root of the problem is that with roaming profiles under '%UserProfile%\AppData' there are 3 folders:

Roaming

Local

LocalLow

If the 'LocalLow' folder is missing, AR crashes (as mentioned in some of the posts above).  Create the folder and it works fine!!  From the diagnosis I've done, it appears that AR checks for the existence of the 'LocalLow' folder and if it can't find it, it crashes!  Nice coding guys!!

The reason for the strange manifestation in my case with my 2 TSs is that the 'LocalLow' folder only gets created when a new profile is being built and in a limited number of other circumstances.  Also, with roaming profiles, when the user logs off only the 'Roaming' folder is replicated back to the network, the 'Local' and 'LocalLow' folders are not.  So therefore; for a TS where a new user logs on for the first time, everything is fine and continues to be fine (as long as the locally cached roaming profile is not deleted).  However, after logon to a second and subsequent TSs, the 'LocalLow' folder is not copied from the network (because it doesn't exist in the roaming profile) and not created (because it's not a first-time profile creation), and so AR goes all 'error code city' on your @ss...

The MS hotfix mentioned in TestGeb's post (http://forums.adobe.com/message/2541067#2541067) seems to promise a fix.  I will test for my situation and let you know.

EDIT: Yes, that fixes the issue for me as well!

I'm just thinking.  This could be related to the UNC 'AppData' path issue.  If the 'LocalLow' folder doesn't exist in the UNC pathed AppData folder I expect the same issue would occur.  It's possible that AR can't read the UNC path correctly tho.

Hope this helps someone!

Sam.

[Guest]

I had this and was able to fix it.  It wasn't even an adobe issue.

Are you guys ApproveIt software?  That's what was giving me the errors.

Look here in the registry

HKCU\Software\VB and VBA Macros

Under that key look for anything that says Software with a + in front of it and delete it.

If that's not the problem 2 other solutions for you

uninstall adobe reader and reinstall it to C:\Program Files\Adobe2

Or reprofile the user.

[Guest]

Glad it worked for you Luke.
I uninstalled 9.0 then downloaded 9.1 only to get the same annoying error message.

[Geekus_Codgerous]

It doesn't work for me at home even on a very simple single user Vista installation.

It also doesn't work at my work, where they rolled back to Version 8.

The IT guys at work are so p..sed off they are going to install an alternative PDF reader.

I have installed Foxit reader (very fast) at home as I'm sick of Adobes' incompetence. 

[Rod4211]

I have exactly the same problem. Anyone know why there is no fix for this.