Here was my scenario and solution.
Acrobat installed in the past on our Terminal Server with no issues. Over time and updates and multiple user profiles it had bloated to 8GB. I uninstalled all things Adobe and installed a sparkly fresh Acrobat XI Std.
'Print to PDF' was creating .pdf's that couldn't be deleted or renamed without the 'This file is opened in Acrobat' locked file messages. To clear I would have to open Task Manager and manually kill the Acrobat.exe process, thus releasing its lock on the file (not a workable solution for our non-administrator users). The problem was this... Normal operation is to select 'print to pdf', name the file, and after clicking 'Save' Acrobat would create the .pdf file and lastly open the just created pdf on screen. Its this last step that was causing the issues.
I finally noticed that after creating the .pdf and its icon appearing on the screen, Acrobat didn't automatically open to display it (hung process). You could double click the just created PDF and open Acrobat manually, but that was starting another process. The initial process was hanging on the last step (Open PDF on screen in Acrobat) Closing your second instance of Acrobat, would still leave the initial hung process pending, locking the file. Finally found the solution (for me).
1st) Verify if this fix applies to you...(if your getting undetectable pdf.s)
When you 'Save as PDF' does it create the PDF but not immediately open acrobat with the created file? If yes then do the following two steps...
A) In Printers, right click the Adobe PDF printer device and select Properties/Advanced. My default was 'Start Printing Immediately', I changed this to 'Start printing after the last page is spooled'. This way Acrobat wont try to open until the conversion process is complete rather then trying to open an incomplete .pdf and hanging (i'm guessing).
B) On that same Advanced tab at the bottom click 'Printing Defaults'. On the 'PDF Converter Properties' dialog that opens check the 'View Adobe PDF results' check box to initiate Adobe to open after loading the pdf. . (NOTE: If this box is already checked and this fix fails, uncheck this box and Adobe will create the PDF where you tell it and not try to open right after which will not create the Acrobat hang issue in the first place. Issue fixed, you will just have to manually click the PDF to open it after saving as PDF)
If all goes well you will soon have happy re-nameable, delete-able .PDFs frolicking across your desktop.
[BTW: On initial install I had the 'Cannot update typelib' install error which i had to resolve with the 'Remove KB3072630 update fix' before i could get this to work. Disregard this comment if you had a smooth install]
AdChoices