July 10th, 2024 still not fixed, infact I quite hate using acrobat I find it handles extremely poorly. This is stupid and I hope that someone in the software design team gets a fire lit under them and gets put into gear.

This has been going on for years but I've finally broken - Stop putting the icon on my desktops. NOT RESOLVED

Will you get this off my desktop, now I need to log an IT ticket with my company, for them to do a remote session to remove this pointless shortcut. That is ineffective use of resources.Stop this marketing tactic, you are invading my privacy and right to choose. I choose to use your product, but I choose not to have your shortcut on my desktop. Stop lying, while reading the post you have not resolved this matter. See screen shot from today. I keep my desktop very tidy, using the desktop for the files I am working on. Yet here is your shortcut in my face. Please resolve.

System Admin here, please for the love of God fix this Adobe. Stop the tyranny. If people want to delete the shortcut, let them. They still going to use Adobe, they just don't need to see it in their face every time they look at their desktop.

As many, many, many users have noted, this is NOT RESOLVED.
There is STILL a shortcut that often appears on Windows desktop (after updates I believe), it is STILL locked with admin rights, even for hiding it.

I could insist on the uttermost uselessness of a shortcut on the desktop, why would I need a shortcut for a PDF reader that is already my default application for opening said documents ? EVEN IF I needed it, I am a big boy and I can make it on my own if I want it. If you think it is more convenient for users to make the shortcut without asking -which is frankly VERY intrusive-, then please consider that it is ALSO CONVENIENT to let users delete it if they do not want it. It is NOT CONVENIENT, neither for me nor to my IT services, to have to ask them to remove it every once in a while.

Letting people manage their shortcuts and their installation is primordial. Respecting your customers' needs is the basis of a good product.
I had been annoyed by your commercial politics for a while, but that's it, knowing that you've known of this issue for years, and done nothing, I quit. I won't use any of your products anymore, and don't expect me to recommend them.

Hey adobe, forcing your stupid ap on my desktop isn't cool. I hope whoever is in charge of fixing this gets fired for negligence.

This issue is NOT RESOLVED! I like many other's have created an account just to log a complaint on this. If you think this is working as intended, then is it your intent to annoy those who use your software? Then you're doing an excellent job! Stop putting a shortcut on my desktop that I didn't ask for!

NOT resolved. ***** Adobe - this is so typical of them. Their business strategy seems to be to annoy users to keep using their software. Nitro PDF reader is a good alternative and it seems their development team doesn't have distain for their customers.

I created an account just to comment on this issue. There are several threads here on Adobe of people complaining about this issue for many years, and yet Adobe refused to address it. Annoying your users is not a great way to build or support your brand.

@Subhadra

This issue is not resolved nor "working as intended" as you claim. You imply because it was installed as admin it requires admin to delete the shortcut - thus "as intended."

The issue is NOT that it requires admin to delete the shortcut, the issue is it keeps putting the shortcut back on the desktop without asking if it is desired.

The issue will not be "resolved" until the shortcut stops appearing on its own.

Please fix it instead of just flagging it as resolved and refusing to work on the solution!

This issue is not resolved. It still is psychological terrorism from Adobe that wants to squat on our desktop real-estate through gorilla marketing deliberately trying to enforce their imposing app us, trying to force something down or throats does not make it more parable nor make us like this app, in fact it only make us hate big corporate and their arrogant behaviour toward consumers.

This is not resolved. It is the bane of my life. Literally logging a call every day or so for IT to come log into my PC as admin to remove this locked shortcut. Stop it now Adobe all its doing is fostering hate for your product.

No @subhadra, this is not resolved.

This 'feature' is allowing Adobe to spam our desktops.

Win 10:
Run the CMD prompt as administrator (Search CMD from the tool bar, right click, run as administrator)
Change directory to the public desktop
(Should be something like CD \Users\Public\Desktop)
Change the attributes of the .lnk file to read only and hidden
attrib +H +R "Adobe Acrobat DC.lnk"

This hides it rather than deleting it... Lets see if it comes back...
Otherwise make a bat file that "IF EXIST" the lnk file, delete it.. and run that each morning...

Sigh.. Thanks for listening to your customers Adobe !

This problem should not have been marked as resolved. Johan's comment below pretty much covers it.

This problem should not have been marked as resolved. Johan's comment below pretty much covers it.

This problem still persists. How Adobe can justify it is beyond me. Imagine if after filling up your car with Gas you would have a giant SHELL or BP logo pop up on your heads-up display and not go away. Asinine.

More than two years after the original post and the utterly USELESS Adobe Reader shortcut still annoys millions of users. All my co-workers agree, and a quick Google search proves this is still a universal complaint.

Who opens a pdf from the Adobe shortcut anyway, and what other purpose does it have for any daily use (what desktop shortcuts are meant for)?

The Adobe Reader shortcut which is stuck to my desktop is just UNPROFESSIONAL and reflects poorly on Adobe.

"Currently the behavior is as designed" - really? What gives Adobe the right to clutter MY desktop with this utterly useless shortcut, and then insult us "ordinary folk" by preventing us from removing it, then having to ask admin to do this measly task again, and again, and again, and again... !?

Is one of many alternative pdf software the only solution to avoid this ANNOYING and CONDESCENDING behavior by Adobe, or should we trust Adobe to finally fix it ?

Adobe, you could re-gain some trust by fixing this for good!
Seriously, it is not that difficult - it is a simple installer table setting that just needs to default to 0 instead of 1, and can be implemented in the very next Adobe Reader "update"...!

Thanks for writing to us! Currently the behavior is as designed. If Acrobat is installed using admin rights, deleting shortcut requires admin privilege. However, I will communicate your feedback to the concerned team to get this request analyzed.