Acrobat Reader DC detected as Acrobat DC

[mag00_75]

Hi All

We stumbled on the issue that our "Adobe Acrobat DC (2021) Continuous" license consumption has increased quite rapidly and started to investigate. 

I found this article that gave me some clue. https://community.adobe.com/t5/acrobat-reader-discussions/adobe-acrobat-reader-dc-x64-msi-installer/m-p/12576339

With that I downloaded and installed AcroRdrDCx642200120085_MUI.msi

When starting the application is presented as "Adobe Acrobat Reader DC (64-bit), however in Add/Remove programs it shows up as "Adobe Acrobat DC (64-bit)" which then triggers the licenses.

Now I'm thinking is it a ARL update that are required or actually a bug/feature in the AcrobatReader installation package? Whats your thoughts if you stumbled onto the same issue?

[anne_watson]

and do you show Distiller installed?

[kclausen]

@anne_watson - Distiller is not installed, just Acrobat Reader.

There is another Community Thread on this topic.  It seems that this new behavior "may" be in the 64-bit version of the Installer.  On my laptop, I have the 64-bit version of Acrobat Reader.  Some other customers have reported that they have the older 32-bit version installed and after upgrades, their Installer Evidence is still showing Acrobat Reader, instead of Adobe Acrobat DC.

[mag00_75]

Hi @kclausen 

Yes, this issue is only for the 64-bit version, which is the new unified installer.
However 32bit gets auto upgraded to 64-bit, there are some criteria that can stop an auto-upgrade to happen.

We are working on a test implementation of importing the Adobe registry keys as a workaround until a common fix is available in ARL update.

[anne_watson]

So that should be the indicator that it is a paid version.  Just spoke with Adobe who said they did this intentionally.  Argh!!!!

[vytasdem]

Hi, any news on this topic?
Looks like the registry key is the only way to determine whether this is a paid version or not - this really does not help us with management of adobe...

In our case, we can see a pretty close number of installations vs assigned licenses for Acrobat pro:

"Acrobat DC (2022) Continuous Pro"

However,  "Acrobat Reader DC (2022)" seems to be a similar number to assigned to Acrobat standard DC.

Distiller 21 is 5 times less than the assigned standard licenses...

Strangely enough, we can see a couple of entries of "Acrobat DC (2021) Continuous Standard" and "Acrobat DC (2020) Continuous".

Any news from flexera, when the plan is to add this registry check for the new versions of Acrobat, as now it's bogus data, and some people can make misleading decisions.

-V

[ChrisG]

The following idea in Flexera Ideas is tracking this: FNMS-I-275: Latest FlexNet agent be able to differentiate between commercial and freeware deployment of Adobe Acrobat Reader DC. This idea is currently shown with a status of "planning to implement". I'm not aware that any specific timeframe for this has been publicly announced by Flexera at this point.

If you haven't done so already, please vote for the idea to indicate your interest.

(CC @jborchers for awareness)

[vytasdem]

Voted. It's strange that this is not yet implemented... Adobe is not the lowest tier vendor 🙂 or is it ? 🙂

[ChrisG]

I'm adding a note here to ensure people see the following post for some current further discussion related to this topic: Content Change Notification: Change in the recognition rules for Adobe Acrobat DC

[nrousseau1 · Accepted solution]

An update on this one, the September 16th release brings a new capability for the Flexera agent to recognize the activated edition (for all users who have logged in the last 90 days on a computer) of Acrobat by reading the "ActivationLevel" registry entry.

Make sure that your inventory settings let the "InventorySettings.xml" to automatically take the latest version (66) and you will take advantage of this new data collection. More information on: https://docs.flexera.com/fnms/EN/features/index.html#FeatureList/2022R1-6/RN-chg-AgentAdobeExtension.html

Best regards,

Nicolas Rousseau

Senior Product Manager

Flexera - ITAM

[ChrisG]

For anybody still considering deploying the InventorySettings.xml file update referred to above, I would suggest considering to hold off and wait for the next update to this file to be published to avoid any issues related to the following: Known Issue: Adobe Acrobat DC detection in InventorySettings.xml revision 66 may trigger a Windows Installer consistency check when inventory is gathered (IOK-932379).

Watch the FlexNet Manager Content Blog for an announcement about an ARL release containing a further update.

[ChrisG]

The issue noted in my previous comment has been resolved in the InventorySettings.xml file version 67, now available as part of Application Recognition Library #2705.

[anne_watson]

I hate to ask this but I must: what if you are not using the FlexNet agent, but are collecting your inventory via SCCM and JAMF?

[ChrisG]

As far as I know, SCCM and JAMF do not have a capability of gathering data that can be used to effectively distinguish Acrobat DC edition information - at least without some kind of customization.

[anne_watson]

That sounds about right.

[afilla]

Soooooooo, you have to use the Agent or you are up the creek with no paddle? Data Platform can seemingly tell the difference.