Acrobat 2020 prompting for license on non-persistent machines

[James Tomiser]

I've been trying to get Acrobat Standard 2020 installed and licensed on our non-persistent VMs and the basic drill has been to follow these steps.  I've probably tried ten times but with no success:

 

1. Create a new layer for Acrobat 2020 in ELM

2. Spin up a VM and Install Acrobat 2020 (same install I'm using successfully on persistent machines -  customized install via Adobe's customization tool)

3. Perform the steps under "Serializing an imaged OS" in this document: https://www.adobe.com/devnet-docs/acrobatetk/tools/AdminGuide/licensing.html

4. Finalize the layer

5. Publish layer to template/create image

6. Apply image to non-persistent machine

 

Everything appears to go flawlessly (no prompt for a license) until I put the image on the machine.  Then, once Acrobat is launched it prompts to sign into Adobe to verify the license.

 

I have walked through the entire process with Adobe support so I'm confident I'm not missing any steps or doing them incorrectly.  Additionally, Adobe has had me perform the steps below, which are not part of the "Serializing an imaged OS" instructions, but do appear elsewhere in that same document.  I'm not sure if these need be done in my situation but I have tried with and without these added steps, still with no success:

 

Run Setup.exe /sALL /msi ROAMIDENTITY=1 ROAMLICENSING=1

Verify the following registry keys are present and the string (REG_SZ) values are 1 on the master image. If not, create the key and set the value as 1.

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Adobe\Licensing\UserSpecificLicensing]"Enabled"="1" (REG_SZ) [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Adobe\Identity\UserSpecificIdentity]"Enabled"="1" (REG_SZ)

 

Any guidance/inspiration will be appreciated!

 

Thanks,

Jim

 

 

[Rob Zylowski]

This topic hasn't come up in years.  I went back to some old work I did in the Unidesk days and I have documented how to use the serializer but i say that for non persistent usage you need to run the serializer script in a boot script so it runs on every VDA when it boots.  I think you could use a layer script for this and create a cmd file with the serializer command line. 

When I did it it was something like this  adobe_prtk –tool=ReplaceSN –reserialize=DesignSuitePremium-CS5.5-Win-GM –serial <your serial number>

Then add the cmd file to the layer script ie something like c:\windows\setup\scripts\adobe_serialize.cmd if you create your script in c:]\windwos\setup\scripts

 

Hope this helps let us know if it works