This application has requested the Runtime to terminate it in an unusual way

[DHLipman]

Adobe Acrobat Professional v8.x (up-to-date w/all patches)

Generated under Windows XP SP3 on an Active Directory Domain.

See attached graphic.

This happens ONLY in the User's account.  Thus removing Acobat and reinstalling as well as a Repair Installation do not help.

If I logon to the end user's PC, Acrobat excutes properly.  No errors.

When the end user logs on and tries Acrobat, she gets the attached error.

The ONLY way I have been able to deal with this to date is to force the creation of a new WinXP User profile.  This is a PITA process that I want to avoid.

[370H55V]

More often than not, this refers to a Microsoft Visual C++ runtime file being out of date (msvcrt.dll or msvcirt.dll). Check your Windows updates or try a manual download of msvcrt.dll that is newer than version 7.

You can find a hotfix for it at microsoft.com.http://support.microsoft.com/kb/884538

I'd recommend doing it through Windows update first and foremost though.

[DHLipman]

Thank you.

No, that is NOT it.

As I noted.

It happens in the end user's account.

It does NOT happen when I logon to her PC and use Acrobat.

Thus it is NOT a file level problem.  It is a user level problem.

I have examined...

C:\Documents and Settings\<end_user>\Application Data\Adobe

C:\Documents and Settings\<end_user>\Local Settings\Application Data\Adobe

I have also examined her User Registry hive to no avail.

If I force her to create a new profile then Acrobat no longer genrates an error.

[370H55V]

I won't argue with you, but four years of dealing with msvcrt.dll errors like this one (in totally different, non Adobe software) taught me that it comes from an msvcrt.dll file entry in HKEY/CURRENT USER and it most certainly IS a Windows user level problem as you stated. That's the reason changing user profiles eliminates it.

Try running windows update, or manually updating the msvcrt.dll under the end user, and see if it helps. This isn't coming from Acrobat.

[DHLipman]

Thanx again...

Windows Update may be locked down via GP.  We have a local WSUS.

As for the HotFix, that had been applied earlier this year and didn't help .  At that point I had forced the creation of a new profile.  That resolved the issue but....   several months later and the problem is back.

The user has...

C:\Documents and Settings\end_user  <------  present user profile.

and

C:\Documents and Settings\end_user.BAK  <--------  old folder prior to creating a new profile.

So if there is something in the HKCU hive, that's what I need to look at.

Any/All help is greatly appreciated.

EDIT:

msvcirt.dll = v7.0.2600.5512

msvcrt.dll  = v7.0.2600.5512

[DHLipman]

I called support this afternoon.

Took 20 ~ 25 minutes waiting and I finally got to talk to a person.  Turns out to be a call center in India { arghhhh }

I had to give them my name, email address and other contact info.  I start to tell them the problem and I tell the support technician to look at this thread as it holds all the technical information needed.

The person on the other end says can you hold for a few minutes.  I agreed.

4~5 minutes later...

A supervisor comes onto the phone.  I ask "why was I transferred to a supervisor.  I didn't need to speak to a supervisor."  He appologized and said he would transfer me to a technician.

A minute later a new person came on the line and I had to give her my name, email address and other contact info and now also my Volume License serial number.  I complied.  I tell this person to look at this thread as it holds all technical information needed for this issue.  She says its an Acrobat startup issue and she has to pass me to ANOTHER technician.

OK, A minute later a new person came on the line and he was asking for my contact information (again).  This time as I'm providing my name, the technician hung up on me !

                                                              A complete waste of ~40 minutes !

[DHLipman]

I called support again this AM

I supplied the support tech. my name, email address and other contact info.  I provided an overview of the problem and I tell the support technician to look at this thread as it holds all the technical information needed.  She says its an Acrobat startup issue and she has to pass me to ANOTHER technician.

A minute later a new person came on the line and I had to give her my name, email address and other contact info and now also my Volume License serial number. I again provided an overview of the problem and I tell the support technician to look at this thread.  She indicates she has to pass me to ANOTHER technician.

A minute or so later a new person came on the line and I had to again provide my name, email address and other contact info and my Volume License serial number. I again provided an overview of the problem and I tell the support technician to look at this thread.  He indicates he has to pass me to ANOTHER technician.  I told him he is the third person I have spoken with.  I was told this would be the LAST TIME I would be transferred.  I saod OK.

A minute or so later a new person came on the line and I had to again provide my name, email address and other contact info and my Volume License serial number.  This time I was put on hold while he said he would contact "Adobe Technical support".  After about 10 mins. he indicates he has to pass me to ANOTHER technician.  I said that I was told by the last technician the HE would be the last and wouldn't be transferred again.  He apologized and and said THIS would be the last time.  I agreed.

A minute or so later a new person came on the line nd I had to again provide my name only this time he said that he knew who I was and needed to provide the last four digits of the VL serial number.  I provided that information and was subsequently told he could not find a contract number and we would have to pay for support.  {  Gee and we have dumped > 1 MILLION of Dollars into Adobe products }

                                  Another wasted HOUR !

Using the end user's account I uninstalled Acrobat v8.x.

Rebooted and in my account I DELETED...

C:\Documents and Settings\<end_user>\Application Data\Adobe

C:\Documents and Settings\<end_user>\Local Settings\Application  Data\Adobe

Then installed Acrobat Professional v9.2 and rebooted.

Tested the end user's account and Acrobat 9 Pro. under her account it worked as expected. 

I have NOTHING good to say about the Adobe call center in India !

This thread speaks to the extremeely poor quality of its service.

[sprale]

David,

Sorry to hear about your troubles with the call center, that's pretty much what I've expereinced on occasion.

A few years back, we also had similar issues. Adobe has a high level support contract that connects you to the same dedicated person every time you call.

My company also spends as much money with Adobe as yours, so another $50k/year didn't take much to get added. The contract puts us in touch with experienced techs and even software engineers, so we feel after two contracts that it is a good investment. It seems that spending that much should include this sort of service complimentary, but alas...

http://www.adobe.com/ap/support/programs/enterprise/premium/

http://www.adobe.com/support/programs/pdfs/tam_datasheet.pdf

[DHLipman]

Thanx for that information.

I will be keeping this thread URL for the next time Adobe spams me to buy more "stuff".     

[DHLipman]

OK, here we go for round three.

Now I am experinencing the SAME problem with Acrobat Professional v9.3.1 and Reader v9.3.1

All have in common, Windows XP SP3 and were updated form Office 2003 to Office 2007.

[sprale]

Do you have multiple versions of either Reader or Acrobat installed on the same PC? Apple computers are able to run multiples, as they have resources dedicated to each instance. Windows systems share resources, so only one version is generally recommended.

Acrobat product interoperability: Install and remove Acrobat and Adobe Reader (9.x on Windows):

http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/333/333223.html

May or may not help, but good infor to keep handy.

In my opinion, Windows installations have shelf lives. If the PC hasn't been wiped in a few years, you might spend less time formatting, reinstalling and setting the user up again than you might continuing to troubleshoot a persistent issue. Worth considering...

[DHLipman]

Thanx for the reply...

This is and enterprise and v8 and V7 of Reader have all been removed.

When this error occured using Adobe Acrobat 8.x, Adobe Reader 9.x was removed.

When the error happened on Acrobat v9.x platforms, they may have v9.x Reader installed as well.

However on the platforms that had this error with Adobe Reader v9.3.1, ONLY Adobe Reader v9.x was installed.

Based upon when and how it happens, I believe that replacing Office 2003 with Office 2007 *may* be a causitive factor.

[DHLipman]

Hit with the SAME problem again !

This happened a few weeks ago and I created a new Windows XP profile for the user and all was OK until Today.

Both Adobe Reader v9.3.1 and Acrobat v9.3.1 generated the error.

Updating to v9.3.2 and a repair did NOT help.

This is pissing me off and I need a REAL solution.

[sprale]

Why are you keeping Reader on a system with Acrobat Pro?

[DHLipman]

For one, it loads quicker than Acrobat Professional.

The second reason is the Centralized IT team will push it to the workstation.

I can understand removing Reader if it a version other than Acrobat's version but in this case, they are the same version.  V9.3.x

[Bill12]

To get Acrobat to load faster, hold down the shft key as you start the product. The stops the plug-ins from loading.

[DHLipman]

That's good auxilliary information Bill@VT and I thank you for it.

However it isn't what I NEED to deal with this issue.

I can't create another new profile for this end-user.  Too much impact.

There's got to be a methodology that I can use to approach this problem but I have run out of ideas.

[DHLipman]

Without getting anything to really help,

I had to resort to creating a new profile for the user.  Again!

As soon as she logged on, I ran both Adobe Reader v9.3.2  and Acrobat Pro. v9.3.2 and they both worked as expected.

I STILL need to know what in the User Profile (Registry or Profile Disk Structure) that is causing the "Runtime to terminate" error.

[DHLipman]

Here we are at the end of July and there STILL is no resolution on this !

In fact, I just ran into a situation where I force this to happen under Windows Vista.

I just upgraded my scanning platforms from Windows XP to Windows Vista.

I setup my profile to Windows Classic and to have a clean desktop with Acrobat Professional v9.3.3 and other TWAIN compliant programs.  I then went into Adobe Acrobat Pro. and setup the Commercial TWAIN driver for the associated HP ScanJet and chose custom so the TWAIN GUI can be chosen to NOT be hidden.

I then gave another user admin Rights and had her logon with her Smart Card.  We then copied my profile to the Default profile.

Now when a new user logs on they inherit the Default Profile BUT....

when they try to run Adobe Acrobat (or Adobe Reader) they get the error message of this thread.

[DHLipman]

UPDATE to last Post:

If I hit the "Shift" key while loading Acrobat Pro., Acrobat loaded but without any .API files being loaded.

I then went to...

C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 9.0\Acrobat\plug_ins

and CUT all *.API files and pasted them to the desktop.

I then started Acrobat w/o a problem.

I then started cutting the *.API files from the desktop and pasting them back into ..\Acrobat\plug_ins  in batches of 3 or 4 files at a time retrying Acrobat each time.  Eventually I narrowed it down to "weblink.api".

When "weblink.api" was loaded, Acrobat crashed with the error of this thread.

When "weblink.api" was not loaded (was not in the folder), Acrobat worked as expected.

[DHLipman]

Thread Update:

http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/404/kb404597.html

Issue

A runtime error occurs on launching any 9.x product:

"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. "

A change where the application will not check for permissions on parent folders is tentatively scheduled for 9.3.4 on October 12, 2010.

We'll see if this is related!

[MichaelKazlow]

Thanks for the update. Sorry to see you are having so many problems. Have you posted your Tech support issues to the adobe.com forum. They have personnel that look into such issues. Obviously, the tech support you received is not acceptable.

[DHLipman]

@MichaelKazlow

You said "Have you posted your Tech support issues to the adobe.com forum.".

This thread is in the Adobe Forums...

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/535753?tstart=0

[DHLipman]

OK, one of my personnel just got this in Adobe Reader v9.3.3 on WinXP.

I then went to...

C:\Program Files\Adobe\Reader 9.0\Reader\plug_ins

and CUT all *.API files and pasted them to the desktop.

I then started Adobe Reader w/o a problem.

I then started cutting the *.API files from the desktop and pasting them back into ..\Adobe\Reader 9.0\plug_ins  in batches of 3 or 4 files at a time retrying Adobe Reader each time.  Eventually I narrowed it down to "ADTACROBAT.api".

When "ADTACROBAT.api" was loaded, Adobe Reader crashed with the error of this thread.

When "ADTACROBAT.api" was not loaded (was not in the folder), Adobe Reader worked as expected.

ADTACROBAT.api is the Silanis ApproveIt plug-in for digitally signing Adobe Forms via one's Smart Card certificates.

[CrossStar]

Followed your plug-in issue and resolved my problem. Then I also noticed I had trouble with ApproveIt signature software from Silanis. We fixed that issue in the registry. I then returned the removed plug-in to the folder and ADTACROBAT.api worked fine.

Fix for ApproveIt:

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

Delete these keys:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Silanis

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\VB and VBA Program Settings

Then run the ApproveIt Config and check off "sign using a certificate or smart card."

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

This worked for us!