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

Report · Jul 11, 2008

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?

Report · Apr 15, 2009

Upgrading from Reader 8.1 to 9.1 seemed to work for me with roaming profiles and redirected Application Data folders. Haven't tried yet with Professional 9.1. Not sure if I trust it enough to deploy it throughout my organization yet, but so far so good.

Report · Apr 28, 2009

I am still having this issue on several machines in my organization. We have updated to the lastest c++ runtime, completely uninstalled all adobe products, and cleared the registry of all Adobe entries. We then updated to the newest adobe (9.1.0.163). Any help would be much appreciated.

Note: We DO NOT have roaming profiles or redirected folders of any kind.

Report · Apr 28, 2009

UPDATE: I have found a solution to my particular problem. I ran process monitor and found that adobe reader was trying to open an add-in that wasn't properly configured for adobe 9.0. I disabled/updated the addin on user's machines and was then able to launch reader.

For reference, addins are generally located in one of these folders (mine was in the reader 8.0 folder even though I only have 9.0 installed)

c:\program files\adobe\reader 8.0\reader\plug_ins

or

c:\program files\adobe\reader 9.0\reader\plug_ins

I hope this helps some of you!

Report · May 07, 2009

Here is how I have fixed this problem. I do not think that this has anything to do with Folder Redirection or Roaming Profiles because I have the problem with or with out. Below fixed the problem for all situations. I think the problems exist in one of the Adobe Plugins that are automatically loaded with the application.

If you are fixing this on just one system just do this.

1. Right Click the AcroRd32.exe in the Adobe 9 install directory.

2. Go to the compatibility tab and check "Run this program in a compatibility mode for:" choose Windows XP SP2.

3. Adobe Reader 9 should work just fine now.

If you are fixing this for your enterprise you just need to create an application compatibility fix with just one fix and push this out with Adobe Reader 9.

1. Download and install the Microsoft ACT Toolkit for Windows Vista.

2. Open the Compatibility Administrator and create a new application fix for Adobe Reader. I will let you read the documentation on how this is done.

3. The only compatibility fix that you need to apply is the WinXPSP2VersionLie.

4. Install the compatibility fix and Adobe Reader 9 should work just fine now.

I cannot put into words how ridiculous that it is this problem has not been fixed by Adobe.

Post back if this helped.

Report · May 08, 2009

It would be nice to hear from someone from Adobe on this issue.

Is your product really Vista compliant or not? I would say not.

Report · May 11, 2009

I ran into this problem with Reader 9.1 today. I noticed the users whose Reader crashes are missing LocalLow in their AppData folder. I create an empty LocalLow and Reader works. But the user logs off and the profile is deleted and LocalLow is missing the next time they log on. Found MS KB here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/955555 This is supposed to fix a bug in Windows Vista/2008 causing LocalLow to be missing. However, the hotfix request link isn't working so now I have to wait for a MS rep to call back so I can request the hotfix by phone. I assume as soon as I solve the missing LocalLow problem the Adobe Reader problem will also be solved.

Report · May 11, 2009

Thanks for the information. I tested the LocalLow scenario and you are right on, problem fixed. I think for now as a workaround we will just add some logic to our login scripts to create this folder if it does not exist in users profile. I am still curious as to why this causes Reader 9 to crash.

Once again thanks for the info

Report · Sep 30, 2009

I've been searching for a solution to this problem for MONTHS, waiting for Adobe to release a fix or find a valid workaround that doesn't involve massive (unnecessary) changes to our profiles, registry changes, etc. I'm finally happy to report that the LocalLow suggestion above resolved this for us.

We are using mandatory profiles for students on our university campus... In this scenario, profiles are stored up on the server and are pulled down when a user logs in, just like roaming profiles, but are later deleted when the user logs off. To resolve the Adobe Reader issue, I simply added an emply LocalLow folder under AppData on the server profile. BINGO - Adobe Reader opens up just fine now.

Thanks to everyone for their assistance with this issue... It still doesn't explain why Adobe hasn't fixed this yet, but at least it's a valid workaround.

Report · Jun 23, 2009

Still an issue today. Tried the regedit but nothing. Anyhow found the fix. Just goto download.com and search for the file there and it will work just fine.

Report · Aug 11, 2009

{adobe Reader 9.1 had the same problem]

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"When you start Adobe Reader 9.1, 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."

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

We had this error with version 9.1.

The problem was not specifically that Application Data uses a UNC path.

Our Application Data points to a dfs share.

However, users did not have the correct access permissions to the folders in the path before the home folder

Giving the users permissions in the intermediate folders eliminates this problem.

The same problem also occurs if Application Data is set to an explicit drive\folder\file path, if permissions on the folders on that path are insufficient.

Is this behaviour intentional?

Report · Oct 01, 2009

I too have been working on this problem all day. Users get the error on freshly-imaged computers with Acrobat Reader 9.1, who previously did not have any problem with Acrobat 8.1. It is definitely a problem with NTFS permissions on the Application Data redirected folder. We are running a Windows 2003 domain with redirected Documents, Desktops, and Application Data. The App Data redirected location for users is the following:

\\Server\AppData\%username%

Our redirected shares are set up to give the user and the Administrators group full permissions for the %username% folder, as described in KB article 288991(http://support.microsoft.com/kb/288991/) and in Moskowitz's group policy book. According to the KB, the \\Server\AppData folder needs the following permissions for users (as well as Full Control for Creator Owner)...

Create Folders / Append Data
Read Permissions
Read Attributes
Read Extended Attributes

...and this is what we had set up. This causes Reader 9.1 to crash upon launch. However, there is some conflicting information between this and KB article 274443* (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/274443/), which suggests these permissions instead:

Create Folder/Append Data
List Folder/Read Data
Read Attributes
Traverse Folder/Execute File

I discovered that adding the "List Folder/Read Data" permission to \\Server\AppData fixes the Reader problem completely. I did not need to add Traverse Folder. Whether this should really be neccessary or not, I'm not sure. Like I said, the two Microsoft KB articles appear to contradict each other.

As an aside, Premier Elements 4 also gave me trouble with redirected Application Data. I intend to revisit now that I have made this change.

* KB274443 says to apply these permissions to Everyone. I would not recommend this. Use an appropriate "staff users" group instead if you have one, or at least the Authenticated Users group instead of Everyone.

Report · Jan 12, 2010

I haven't read through all 3 pages of posts, but the general consensus I have is that the issue is in fact related to the redir

ection of the Application Data folder. The main issue being that the use of a UNC path causes the error described, with some mention to explicit user permissions on the root of the folder path.

I was just recently made aware of this issue in our environment. Apparently we've held off upgrading to Adobe 9.x because of this issue. After a little research, it was apparent that simply modifying the default Folder Redirection policies is not possible because the use of a mapped drive is not supported.

I haven't had a chance to test this yet, and may not be able to for some time, so I thought I would share this in case someone else might be able to test. The idea being to simply use a custom ADM file to force the redirection of certain profile folders. Again, I haven't tested this using a mapped drive in the path, but I have successfully used the same settings below to redirect other folders not available by default in Group Policy.

1) Copy the text between ----- Start of ADM ------ and ----- End of ADM ------ and paste it into a text file.

2) Rename the .txt to .adm.

3) Load the ADM template into a GPO.

4) Right click "USER Custom Settings", select "View", select "Filtering" and uncheck the option "Only show policy settings that can be fully managed".

5) Configure the "Redirect Application Data" option as enabled, and enter a mapped drive path.

6) Test.

I'm interested to hear if this is a viable solution or not.

------ Start of ADM -----

CLASS USER
CATEGORY "USER Custom Settings"

CATEGORY "Folder Redirection Settings"

                  POLICY "Redirect My Documents"
                  EXPLAIN "By default files are stored as part of the
user's profile.\n\nConfigure alternative locations here."
                  KEYNAME
"Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders"
                  PART "Redirect to" EDITTEXT
                        VALUENAME "Personal"
                        MAXLEN 255
                        DEFAULT ""
                        EXPANDABLETEXT
                  END PART
                  END POLICY ; RedirectHistory

                  POLICY "Redirect Application Data"
                  KEYNAME
"Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders"
                  EXPLAIN "By default files are stored as part of the
user's profile.\n\nConfigure alternative locations here."
                  PART "Redirect to" EDITTEXT
                        VALUENAME "AppData"
                        MAXLEN 255
                        DEFAULT ""
                        EXPANDABLETEXT
                  END PART
                  END POLICY ; RedirectHistory

                  POLICY "Redirect Cookies"
                  KEYNAME
"Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders"
                  EXPLAIN "By default files are stored as part of the
user's profile.\n\nConfigure alternative locations here."
                  PART "Redirect to" EDITTEXT
                        VALUENAME "Cookies"
                        MAXLEN 255
                        DEFAULT ""
                        EXPANDABLETEXT
                  END PART
                  END POLICY ; RedirectCookies

                  POLICY "Redirect Favorites"
                  KEYNAME
"Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders"
                  EXPLAIN "By default files are stored as part of the
user's profile.\n\nConfigure alternative locations here."
                  PART "Redirect to" EDITTEXT
                        VALUENAME "Favorites"
                        MAXLEN 255
                        DEFAULT ""
                        EXPANDABLETEXT
                  END PART
                  END POLICY ; RedirectFavorites

                  POLICY "Redirect History"
                  KEYNAME
"Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders"
                  EXPLAIN "By default files are stored as part of the
user's profile.\n\nConfigure alternative locations here."
                  PART "Redirect to" EDITTEXT
                        VALUENAME "History"
                        MAXLEN 255
                        DEFAULT ""
                        EXPANDABLETEXT
                  END PART
                  END POLICY ; RedirectHistory

                  POLICY "Redirect Recent Documents"
                  KEYNAME
"Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders"
                  EXPLAIN "By default files are stored as part of the
user's profile.\n\nConfigure alternative locations here."
                  PART "Redirect to" EDITTEXT
                        VALUENAME "Recent"
                        MAXLEN 255
                        DEFAULT ""
                        EXPANDABLETEXT
                  END PART
                  END POLICY ; RedirectRecent

END CATEGORY
END CATEGORY

------ END of ADM -----

Report · Sep 21, 2009

We had this issue for a very long time and was using Adobe Reader 8 and FoxIt Reader as an alternative for both 32 bit and 64 bit Vista machines. I have tried all the previous suggestions with the local low folder, registry hacks, trying 9.0, 9.1, 9.2, 9.3 with the same result.

What worked for us is we had folder redirection set for roaming profiles so that Application Data or AppData saves to the users local hard drive rather than the server if you use a UNC path make sure they have permissions to it.

What fixed it for us is this User GPO setting:

"User Configuration/Policies/Windows Settings/FolderRedirection/AppData(Roaming)/Setting:Basic (redirect everyone's folder to the same location)/Options/Grant user exclusive rights to AppData(roaming)"

This setting must be enabled. The other two options should be enabled as well but we always had them enabled anyways.

Report · Sep 24, 2009

Hi

What a F@@kup morning this is. Last night I installed Adobe Reader 9.1 on 15 Citrix servere. This morning i ran into the same problem as everyone else on this tread.

My environment is 15 Citrix server, with roaming profiles.

When I started the to get the error messages. I started process explorer, and saw that acrord32 did get some access denied on the users home folder.

The home folder is accessed from \\servername\Users$\Office\%username%, acrord32.exe did get access denied on the \\servername\Users$\Office.

Change the ACL on the Office folder, so that Domain users had read. And all worked well. Did not do anything with the profile.

Hope this will help someone.

Report · Jan 24, 2010

When you have this issue when logging in with a roaming userprofile on a W2K8 Terminalserver then this is the:

CAUSE:
The LocalLow folder is not created on the Terminalserver. Therefore, any applications that access the LocalLow folder may fail.

RESOLUTION:
Get the following Microsoft HOTFIX and install it (just fill your e-mail adres and MS sends you the hotfix)

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/955555/en-us

(BE SURE! To open above link from an 2008 server!)

Gr. Testgeb

Report · Jan 24, 2010

When you have this issue when logging in with a roaming userprofile on a W2K8 Terminalserver then this is the:

CAUSE:
The LocalLow folder is not created on the Terminalserver. Therefore, any applications that access the LocalLow folder may fail.

RESOLUTION:
Get the following Microsoft HOTFIX and install it (just fill your e-mail adres and MS sends you the hotfix)

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/955555/en-us

(BE SURE! To open above link from an 2008 server!)

Gr. Testgeb

Report · Jan 25, 2010

The easier way to do that, is to just disable folder re-direction from group policy.

Report · Feb 02, 2010

FYI, we ran into this problemon Windows Vista 32bit with no folder redirection and as many have reported it just started happening, out of the blue, so some update must have caused the problem. Our computers are on a domain but users profiles are all local, we do not use any UNC paths. I did not create the HDD image for the computers that the problem is occurring on but I can say for sure that it is not just a problem where the profiles/app data folders are redirected or pointed to a UNC path. This problem is effecting more windows configurations than Adobe has posted in this thread.

I too have not read all three pages of posts so this information may be stale but non-the-less here it is in case you are in my situation and looking for a quick fix.

Completely uninstall Adobe Reader and any Adobe related components such at AIR, adobe.com and download manager, these all come bundled together now. Then go to this http://get.adobe.com/reader/otherversions/page and download and install the version 8.2 reader, be sure to uncheck the google tool bar option :^) . This fixed the problem for us, you may not need to uninstall all those apps but this is what I did, I hope it helps you too.

~Garth - UC, Irvine Techie

P.S. I noticed that this problem only occurred in profiles that were newly created after the update. Existing profiles did not have this problem.

Report · Mar 26, 2010

Deleted the users profile and the issue is gone.

Report · Mar 27, 2010

Deleting the user profile did not fix the problem for our computers. We had to uninstall the software and install an older version. I have not tried the latest version so this problem may also be fixed in a recent patch.

Report · Mar 30, 2010

If you need to have folder redirection in your Group Policy, you can add this script to your local computer policy logon scripts and it should eliminate the Runtime error.

Set objWshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
objWshShell.RegWrite "HKCU\software\microsoft\windows\currentversion\explorer\user shell folders\Appdata", "<YOUR DRIVE LETTER PATH>"

Report · Apr 01, 2010

This is ridiculous. This has been a known problem for at least two years and Adobe has still failed to do ANYTHING about it.

What about this article? http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/404/kb404597.html

I could've sworn I just recently downloaded the newest version and tried it OK. But, yet again, I am dealing with this problem. I have downloaded and installed the newest 9.3 version today. That version has the same problem.

I don't know why I even want to use this program. Can anybody seriously tell me why I would want to use Adobe Reader with its adobe air, and adobe.com and its google toolbar, when I can download FoxIt Reader which I have not tried yet?

Report · Apr 03, 2010

I love reading all of these posts, from all of you folks who are a million times more knowledgable about computer issues than I am. Here I sit, at home, on a Saturday night, trying yet again to find a way to solve this problem that has been driving me nuts for the last two months. In my simple little world as a home-based business owner with one primary laptop, the fact that I can't download PDF's is preventing me from compiling my financial data for my accountant. While some of the language you speak ("tech-speak") has familiar sounds, I can't understand most of what anybody is saying. All I want to do is to be able to use Reader to get my AMEX and bank statements. (Yes, I can download the AMEX statements into Excel, but my bank only has PDFs available, and it would cost me an arm and a leg to get paper copies of statements for the number of accounts I have.) THIS IS SO FRUSTRATING. For the life of me, can't figure out what the "trigger" was that started this mess.

Is there some place that I, and people like me (i.e., minimally skilled regarding "high-tech" fixes) can turn for a solution for our little one or two computer setups? I bet you that for every skilled techie that has posted here, there are ten people like me who finish reading the posts, shake their heads, and fail to leave a message because they are either, 1) embarrassed of their ignorance, or 2) so confused by tech-speak that they know they wouldn't understand the directions posted anyway. I am not complaining...I actually pick up bits and pieces of knowledge reading all of ya all's posts...but, I too need a solution to this problem.

I'm just hoping that maybe one of you has seen a solution to this posted on a, well, more of a "Adobe for Dummies" site.

Thanks in advance for your help!

Stevie

Report · Apr 03, 2010

I have stopped following this topic a long time ago, for many reasons. Mostly because I do not experience the problem myself, so I cannot reproduce any of the many "solutions" and suggestions offered here.

What I would do if I were in your situation is to use one of the several alternate free PDF readers available on the Internet.

Report · Apr 05, 2010

Hello,

It is so kind of you to respond, especially under the circumstances (that you no-longer have this problem.) I did find Foxit Reader, and have used that last night, with no difficulty. Before I read of this on the forum a couple of days ago, I didn't even realize that there are alternatives to Adobe Reader... Now that is a very sad realization. I just need to spend more time, crawling from one forum to the next, illuminating my mind.

Thanks for your suggestion.

Regards,

Lisa