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A
Anonymous
September 25, 2014
Answered

Post Installation/Deployment Software License Agreement Suppression Acrobat X Pro

  • September 25, 2014
  • 2 replies
  • 10690 views

I just stated with a new organization and we recently [successfully] deployed Adobe Acrobat X Pro (10.1.0.534).  However, we're receiving reports (from users and IT staff alike) that when launching the application, it runs for 30 seconds or so, quits then prompts the user to accept the Adobe Software License Agreement before they can actually use the application.  Having just walked into the door, I can't confirm it was packaged with the Customization Wizard, but that is looking less & less likely.

So, having deployed this to about 2000 clients, how can we go about suppressing (read: accepting) this Acrobat Software License Agreement at an enterprise level?  (We'll figure out how, I just want to know what setting needs to be in place to eliminate this prompt.)

In the past (e.g.: Acrobat 7, 8 & I think 9) we were able to suppress this via a registry like:

  • reg add "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Adobe\Adobe Acrobat\VERSION\AdobeViewer" /v Registered /t REG_DWORD /d 00000002 /f >>!_BatchLog! 2>>&1
  • reg add "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Adobe\Adobe Acrobat\VERSION\AdobeViewer" /v EULA /t reg_dword /d 00000001 /f >>!_BatchLog! 2>>&1
  • reg add "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Adobe\Adobe Acrobat\VERSION\AdobeViewer" /v EULA /t reg_dword /d 00000001 /f >>!_BatchLog! 2>>&1

But I believe either in 9 or X (10.x) EULA changed to EULAAcceptedForBrowser and with this being a 64-bit version of Windows 7, I figured it would be in one of a few places:

  1. HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Adobe\Adobe Acrobat\10.0
  2. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Adobe\Adobe Acrobat\10.0
  3. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Adobe\Adobe Acrobat\10.0

I'm seeing EULAAcceptedForBrowser in the AdobeViewer key in locations 1 & 3 above so I exported both AdobeViewer keys & imported it elsewhere, but its still prompting.

So, on a whim, I added the three bulleted keys above and when launched, it worked fine.  Yay!

After about 30 seconds or so, it behaves exactly as I described above: The application launches, you can work in it, but after at most 30 seconds, the application closes and launches the licensing agreement (PDApp.exe) again.  What.  The.  Heck.

So, experts out there, what are we missing?  How can we get this resolved without doing in place reinstalls or uninstalling/installing?  We have to keep user interruption and fatigue to a minimum, and another 'deployment' is just not an option.

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer

There are two other ways that you can attempt to do this.

1.  Use the EULA_ACCEPT property at install time: 

http://www.adobe.com/devnet-docs/acrobatetk/tools/AdminGuide/properties.html

Installation    9.0 & later    EULA_ACCEPT    YES prevents the EULA from appearing the first time the viewer is invoked. For 10.1.4, see the release notes.

2.  Use APTEE after installation for the applications already installed

4   Installation Workflows — Enterprise Administration Guide

adobe_prtk --tool=Type1Exception --accept --serial=<serialNum> --responsecode=responseCode --leid=DriverLEID

2 replies

A
Anonymous
Correct answer
September 26, 2014

There are two other ways that you can attempt to do this.

1.  Use the EULA_ACCEPT property at install time: 

http://www.adobe.com/devnet-docs/acrobatetk/tools/AdminGuide/properties.html

Installation    9.0 & later    EULA_ACCEPT    YES prevents the EULA from appearing the first time the viewer is invoked. For 10.1.4, see the release notes.

2.  Use APTEE after installation for the applications already installed

4   Installation Workflows — Enterprise Administration Guide

adobe_prtk --tool=Type1Exception --accept --serial=<serialNum> --responsecode=responseCode --leid=DriverLEID

A
Anonymous
October 10, 2014

Thanks for the reply Sabian Zildjian.

While the information you shared will likely prove helpful to others who find this post, it doesn't quite fit the bill.

  1. Item one in your reply isn't an option because the application is already installed & deployed.  This requires repackaging Acrobat (and correctly I might add!) then re-deploying it.  That's not something we're willing to do at the moment.
  2. Item two would be nice to use except (from the page itself): "The Adobe Provisioning Toolkit Enterprise Edition is a command-line tool that helps you track and manage serialization of Adobe®Creative Suite® products that you have deployed using the Adobe Application Manager Enterprise Edition."  Well, (a) this isn't CS5/5.5/6 or part of a CS bundle and (b) it wasn't deployed (or packaged) using AMEE.  The command line utility requires the application LEID which can be found here (http://www.adobe.com/go/aptee_leid), and again, its for CS products; there's nothing there for Acrobat.

Again, good information here, but unless I'm missing something, this isn't going to work for the current situation.

EnterpriseHelp
EnterpriseHelp
Inspiring
October 17, 2014

This is truly bonkers.

Here is what seems to be happening:

  1. Upon Launching Acrobat, it works for a handful of seconds
  2. Then one of the following happens:
    • Acrobat does some sort of check which then triggers a call to PDApp.exe ("C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Adobe\OOBE\PDApp\core\PDapp.exe") and Acrobat is terminated; OR
    • Something else triggers PDApp.exe which forces Acrobat to quit
  3. The command line parameters/arguments for PDApp.exe: "C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Adobe\OOBE\PDApp\core\PDApp.exe" --appletID=LWA_UI --appletVersion=1.0 --workflow=Provisioning_{AC76BA86-1033-F400-7760-000000000005} --locale=en_US --mtlibXMLFile="C:\Users\myuser~1\AppData\Local\Temp\oobelib_a03376"

Surely with all this information, there must be some sort of audit trail of what's happening; some sort of validation that's failing or not taking place.  In my free time (hah!) I'll whip out process explorer & process monitor to see exactly whats happening during that period.

I imaged 4 machines today and accepted the EULA only on one of them.  I'll see what they look like on Monday.

Ah yes the old CR bug.  Good one!  I had no issues opening a PDF called "CRunchy.pdf" on the one machine I accepted the EULA.  I tried the same PDF on one of the other machines where I'm still getting the prompt and it opens without issue then terminates.

As for your other questions:

  • That may very well be the case.  I only found one installer which is a simple batch file that calls Setup.exe followed by msiexec.exe /update AcrobatUpd1010.msp /qb.  (that's it literally) Acrobat *IS* in the gold image so it was installed on the reference machine, then sysprepped & captured.
  • I have not yet tried running the same setup on a vanilla non-customized machine.  I want to get there, but time is not on my side as we're in the midst of a deployment/rollout.

I still don't understand the existing deployment details. In case this is relevant: 4   Installation Workflows — Enterprise Administration Guide (imaged OS constraints).

Anyway, without a test on a clean machine you're probably spinning your wheels. The original deployment method was likely flawed.

hth,

Ben

EnterpriseHelp
EnterpriseHelp
Inspiring
September 25, 2014

The reg prefs haven't changed over time and are documented correctly in the Pref Ref.

If you don't see any mismatch wit the doc, export your registry and paste it here.

Ben

A
Anonymous
October 10, 2014

Thanks for the reply brogers_1.

That page will no doubt serve others who stumble across this page.

Now, for the record, if one searches for "EULA" on the page you linked, it will take them to AdobeViewer (PDF Viewer Settings) page here: http://www.adobe.com/devnet-docs/acrobatetk/tools/PrefRef/Windows/AdobeViewer.html?zoom_highlight=EULA

And that confirms that Acrobat uses 'EULAAcceptedForBrowser'.  Although the path isn't specified there, its presumably:

  1. On a 64-bit machine:
    1. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Adobe\Adobe Acrobat\10.0\AdobeViewer
    2. HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Adobe\Adobe Acrobat\10.0\AdobeViewer
  2. On a 32-bit machine:
    1. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Adobe\Adobe Acrobat\10.0\AdobeViewer
    2. HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Adobe\Adobe Acrobat\10.0\AdobeViewer

Since this is a 64-bit machine, here's an export of the former registry location:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Adobe\Adobe Acrobat\10.0\AdobeViewer]

"EULAAcceptedForBrowser"=dword:00000001

"bLaunched"=dword:00000001

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Adobe\Adobe Acrobat\10.0\AdobeViewer]

"EULAAcceptedForBrowser"=dword:00000001

"bLaunched"=dword:00000001

Despite having set that, when I launch Acrobat, I get the Software License Agreement screen.

To be sure I even went as far as adding the above settings to the 32-bit location, but the problem persists.

So, if I'm missing something, kindly point it out!

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