Skip to main content
J
jlester_ak
New Participant
March 10, 2011
Question

WinXP - Recurring Error: 16

  • March 10, 2011
  • 3 replies
  • 14432 views

Hey All,

We've been deploying Adobe products utilizing group policy software installations; in the past, we've only had Flash and Reader deployed in this way. Recently our division got volume licensing for Acrobat, so we've been starting to roll that out. While the installation more-or-less works with Vista/7, we've hit a big snag on our XP machines.

Acorbat appears to install just fine via GPO but, on about half of the XP boxes, Acrobat closes right after you try to open a PDF and displays an error 16. It seems like Acrobat will work for a user at first but, as soon as the user logs in to the comp a second time, error 16 comes back with a vengance. There are a couple other posts on here depicting this error, but none of their solutions work in our enviroment. Some of the things we've tried:

  • Verifying permissions - http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/827/cpsid_82744.html
    • Tried changing permissions on just those individual folders and their entire containers - neither worked
    • Whenever I uncheck the 'read-only' box and hit apply, it gives me an 'access denied' error on a few files. Then, if I open the properties window again, the 'read-only' box is re-checked, though it's a full box, not a checkmark.
  • Reinstall
    • Tried uninstalling Acrobat completely and reinstalling via...
      • GPO
      • Un-customized .msi (we typically apply an MST to the GPO)
      • The original disc
    • Tried uninstalling ALL Adobe products, then installing JUST Acrobat in the three ways described above.
      • Sidenote - if you've never tried to completely uninstall an adobe product, you're in for a treat - there are little bits of Adobe lying ALL OVER the system drive. Does anyone know of a solid method that will actually work to remove Adobe's residuals? Even their Flash uninstaller leaves Flashy crap behind.
    • In all of these instances Acrobat will work again, but only for the first time a user logs in. After they log out of that comptuer and back in, the configuration error pops right back up.

I'm at my wit's end on this and would seriously appreciate any ideas. Has anyone experienced anything like this before? Does anybody have some more options we can try out?

Thank you all so much for reading,

Jake

This topic has been closed for replies.

3 replies

K
kashifMohd
Participating Frequently
October 10, 2011

raynebc2,

What permissions do you have for Administrator and everyone on:

%ProgramFiles%\Common Files\Adobe\Adobe PCD\

%ProgramFiles%\Common Files\Adobe\Adobe PCD\cache

%ProgramFiles%\Common Files\Adobe\Adobe PCD\cache\cache.db

Goto the Security tab in properties dialog box to view the permissions.

Also, have you set any policy to restrict permissions on "%ProgramFiles%\Common Files" folder??

A
Anonymous
October 12, 2011

The problem had come back after it had gone away, I don't know if it's because of Acrobat 10's designed behavior (ie. only trying to alter certain files every so often).  The user is a local administrator and has full control access to those two directories and that file.  We are not using any policies to restrict access to that folder, although I'm certain this is a problem where Acrobat may not have been designed to handle User Account Control, where all write access to anything within the "program files" directories is restricted by default unless the user launched the program with elevated permissions.  Please confirm whether Acrobat 10 has such compatibility issues.

I launched Acrobat elevated as administrator and after several seconds, it brought up the registration prompt.  The user registered, and at least for now, the problem appears to have gone away.  If the problem stays away, then it appears to be a problem where Acrobat is creating/editing files in areas protected by User Account Control, and it should be properly prompting the user to elevate the program's access as per Microsoft's intentions.  UAC is on by default in Windows Vista and Windows 7, so Adobe should strive to develop with that in mind.

K
kashifMohd
Participating Frequently
October 13, 2011

Don't look at the permissions for Administrator, what are the permissions for 'Everyone' user group. I have a machine where Acrobat has been deployed via GPO. I can see there that "%ProgramFiles%\Common Files\Adobe\Adobe PCD\" has only Read access for Everyone but "%ProgramFiles%\Common Files\Adobe\Adobe PCD\cache" has Read\Write access for Everyone which seems fine. So it seems that Adobe is setting the permissions correctly.

A
Anonymous
October 5, 2011

The exact same error was occuring for one of our users in Windows 7 x64, even though he was a local administrator.  I added modify rights to that folder and its contents to the local users group and the problem appears to have been immediately resolved.  My guess is that Acrobat's installer didn't correctly set permissions on this.  Please fix your product Adobe.

A
Anonymous
May 11, 2011

I had the same error when installing this product. Ran ProcMon to check what was being blocked by policy and modified the GPO to allow access.

Used %ProgramFiles%\Common Files\Adobe\Adobe PCD\ and granted Modify rights to my Domain Users. No problem after running a gpupdate /force from the command line.

Y
Yakov_Fain
New Participant
July 11, 2011

Had this error on the Windows XP machine, where i didn't have admin rights. After the rights were granted, the error disappeared.

Yakov Fain

Terms & ConditionsAccessibility statement
Using the community Terms of use Privacy Cookie preferences Do not sell or share my personal information ad choicesAdChoices