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Participant
May 17, 2019
Question

Reader won't Launch, The app won't Launch

  • May 17, 2019
  • 3 replies
  • 3934 views

I've been searching for answers on this for 2 days now. My Acrobat Reader DC app won't launch, as in after I click the executable it loads for a second then nothing. Nothing in the task manager, nothing at all. It just won't launch, Tried reinstalling, restarting computer, nothing happens. Any help would be appreciated, thanks.

This topic has been closed for replies.

3 replies

Participant
January 15, 2022

Hi I'm also having this issue where  I was using Adobe and then it suddenly crashed and now I can't open any Adobe pdf files I tried the register key but that still didn't work 

Participant
February 7, 2020

I have the same problem.  Using Windows 10, I uninstalled previous version and install latest.  Still unable to execute app.

I do not know how to modify my registries.

Thank you,

George Nowakowski

Participant
May 17, 2019

I’m going through the same and adobe is not helping At all. It happened on there May 14 th update. I have over 1,000 endpoints that can’t open pdf files. This is disturbing

Adobe Employee
May 18, 2019

Hello teddyd40786348 and JohnAGlyden,

Sorry for the inconvenience caused.

Please create the following registry and verify:

At the following registry key [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Adobe\Acrobat Reader\DC\Privileged]

create dword bEnableProtectedModeAppContainer and make it value 0

Please relaunch your Reader and verify if its able to launch now.

Confirm to me once you experiment this out.

This is a security preference, so ideally it should be enabled to protect Reader from exploits and vulnerabilities.

If your are able to launch Reader after disabling the registry value, I would like to get to the root cause of this issue after enabling the registry back . It could be due to some configuration in your system or some antivirus software conflicting.

Thanks,

Shakti K

Adobe Employee
May 20, 2019

That worked. Thank y’all


Hi teddyd40786348,

Thanks for testing this out.

As Run in App container preference which we made OFF by the registry key option is a critical feature from security perspective, so Run in App Container should be made ON, so that this issue can be debug and fixed.

Can you please provide me with the process monitor logs in the case where Reader was not able to launch for you.

Steps to follow:

  1. Launch Reader.
  2. Goto Edit->Preferences->Security(Enhanced)
  3. Check the checkbox Run in App Container and press OK to the preference dialog.
  4. Close Reader. View that the registry key bEnableProtectedModeAppContainer is set to 1 in this case.
  5. Open process monitor . Process monitor can be downloaded from Process Monitor - Windows Sysinternals | Microsoft Docs
  6. Now try launch Reader . You will encounter the error as earlier faced by you.
  7. Save the procmon logs as .pml file and send it across to me.

I have private messaged you my email details.

Thanks,

Shakti K