2 different Device Activation Limit Messages

[James5f95]

We are seeing 2 different Device Activation Limit messages using the same version of Acrobat DC on different computers.  Our team is responsible for packaging and deploying products to computers world-wide and we are using federated logins for a single sign-on experience.  

What we are experincing in our tests is some of our test users get the older Activation Limit message as seen here:  https://helpx.adobe.com/creative-cloud/kb/activation-limit-reached-creative-cloud.html

And on a different computer, the same user sees the newer activation limit message where you can log out of the device and continue.  https://helpx.adobe.com/download-install/using/device-activation-limit.html

Does anyone know what is driving that message format?  The second message is what we are expecting so seeing the legacy message is troubling when attempting to standardize a global roll-out.

Thoughts?

[John T Smith]

Packager Links https://community.adobe.com/t5/Get-Started/Same-package-for-different-teams/td-p/6533390

[___Dom___ · Accepted solution]

Hello,

Firstly, please could you confirm the kind of package you are using to install - is it a legacy-style Acrobat package with a subdirectly in the ZIP file that's called "Adobe Acrobat", or a package generated from https://adminconsole.adobe.com/ containing Acrobat? In the latter case, the package should be installed via the setup.exe in the "Build" directly, not the one within the Acrobat subdirectory, to ensure the licensing information and the various shared components (Visual C++ Redistributables etc.) are installed as well as Acrobat. You can still use MST Transforms files with this method.

Secondly, it might be the case that you have the old AMT licensing service enabled on some of these systems; you can check this as follows:

Old licensing mechanism:

Windows registry:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Adobe\Adobe Acrobat\<version>\Activation]
"IsAMTEnforced"=dword:00000001

mac OS:

MAC:
/Library/Preferences/com.adobe.Acrobat.Pro.plist

<dict>
<key>FeatureLockDown</key>
<dict>
<key>IsAMTEnforced</key>
<true/>
</dict>

The alternative (and default) is to enable NGL by either deleting the aforementioned settings, or setting the following options to enable the new licensing mechanism - these should not be necessary, but you can set them to ensure this is enabled:

Windows:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Adobe\Adobe Acrobat\<version>\Activation]
Create a new 32-bit DWORD: "IsNGLEnforced"=dword:00000001

MAC:
/Library/Preferences/com.adobe.Acrobat.Pro.plist

<dict>
<key>IsNGLEnforced</key>
<true/>
</dict>

Sincerely,

Dominic

[JuliusPIV]

Hey @___Dom___ Is there any concern with having both IsAMEnforced and IsNGLEnforced enabled, set to 1?

If so, what happens when both are enabled?

[___Dom___]

I wouldn't recommend it, and I'm not sure it's something we would test for. I suggest enabling one or the other, ideally use NGL unless you have a serial number.