I use a direct hit app that was written for adobe reader in firefox. I use adobe acrobat every day for my shop but I need reader for an app that I also use every day. I am forced to fire up another laptop to use reader. This is simply ridiculous

Couldn't agree more.

Thanks for the great article by ASARDigital.com please mention my link here dear admin.

ASARDigital.com Team
https://asardigital.com/

David Tetrault saved the day! Works like a charm! @Konare XD used this link for the installer: https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/kb/acrobat-dc-downloads.html

via DC customization wizard? In my admin console, there is almost no option to customize the download at all.
How y'all handling the updates? Eversince the registry keys are set the automatic updates won't work tho.

I downloaded the package from the admin console. There seems to be no public download.

I couldn't find the installer david mentioned. Can anyone tell me which one is the right?

A constraint completely ridiculous.

Davids solution works in our environment, thank you so much! I'd buy you a beer if I could! :-)

David Tetrault, if your idea works and Adobe doesn't engineer around it, thank you very much!

There is an installation called "Adobe Acrobat 64-bit Windows Enterprise - Multilingual Unified Installer (Reader + Acrobat)" that I have been using. Along with a Registry Merge file :

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Adobe\Adobe Acrobat\DC\FeatureLockDown]
"bIsSCReducedModeEnforcedEx"=dword:00000001

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Adobe\Adobe Acrobat\DC\FeatureLockDown\cIPM]
"bDontShowMsgWhenViewingDoc"=dword:00000000
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What this does is allows Acrobat to function like Reader if the user is not signed in, or doesn't have a license applied to their account.

If the user is signed in with an account that has a Pro or Standard license assigned, it will function as the appropriate version.

This has solved my issues with Acrobat closing immediately if the user doesn't have a license.

Adobe is forcing me to deploy Foxit to view PDFs because we bought Standard licenses for 10 % of our users. I don't see the logic behind this. If the goal is to push for the purchase of licenses for all users, it won't work.
I'm definetely checking if Foxit allows parallel use of Editor and Reader in RDS environments.

This is critical to forms developers, and anyone who uses Pro to make documents for others to use with Reader. It's also critical to trainers who need to demonstrate the differences between Reader and Pro, which is impossible to do with 3rd party apps (Foxit etc.) so we resort to using screenshots (boo) -- now impossible to make ourselves because if we have Pro, we don't have Reader. I have resorted to using a different computer (on which is installed Reader only) to create movies or screen captures.

I completely agree with those who point out the need for developers to be able to do this, but I have a different (non-dev) 'beef' with this issue.

We have purchased 3 licenses for Pro for our organization for those who need those features. We have a couple of users who only need Reader (all of our other users use a competitor to Pro, because we need unrelated functionality of theirs).

One of the Reader-only users' installations corrupted recently. I uninstalled completely and then reinstalled their Reader. Adobe automatically upgraded them to Pro. They never had Pro to begin with. Adobe must have recognized the same public-facing IP for the company and decided to treat all company users as subscribers. That is insane! If they think we will now be forced to subscribe for that user to continue reading PDF's, they are even more insane!

If they allowed both apps to co-exist, I would simply leave the user signed out of Pro and make Reader the default app for PDF's and the problem would be solved.

This is not just an issue for dev's, unfortunately.

It appears (a guess) that Acrobat Reader, Standard, and Pro are now all the same application with features unlocked for paid versions. But there is still the problem that Standard and Pro users need to be able to use the limited Reader features at the same time they're running Standard or Pro for checking/testing their PDF work or for other reasons. Also, for some users, different features (Reader vs. Pro) for different logins on the same computer.

I fail to see the rationale behind preventing users from using Acrobat Reader when Acrobat is installed and forcing users to use 3rd party PDF readers.

I design PDF forms in Acrobat Pro for my workplace but my users use Acrobat Reader.

Since I cannot have both apps on my computer, I get blindsided when I add features to my forms but my users cannot use them in Acrobat Reader because I was not able to test it in Acrobat Reader.

Our document management software is not compatible with the 64 bit version of Reader or with Acrobat Pro. Users are not able to view PDFs if they can't install the 32 bit version of Reader alongside Acrobat Pro.

I, like others on this thread, need to use Acrobat Reader for training, testing, and demonstrations. I use Acrobat Pro every day, but without being able to use Reader separately, I cannot be certain that the solutions I've developed (e.g., forms) will work as expected. I also cannot demonstrate to my students and clients the differences between these two products. Adobe, please support your users and how they are using your products. It's bad enough that your products need to be purchased via subscription, which is very expensive (worse in Canada because it's 35% more up here due to the strength of the Canadian dollar), but to take away a functionality that professionals have relied on for years is short-sighted. I'm appalled, really. I'm currently checking out alternatives (FoxIt) to recommend to my small business clients as alternatives because Adobe doesn't seem to be listening to its professional customers.

Folks, none of this will happen because Adobe's shareholders have decided to squeeze maximum money out of every Adobe Reader user.

That's why each of the estimated 2 billion users of Adobe Reader secretly gets an almost complete version of Adobe Acrobat DC installed, so that they can be constantly bombarded with ads in order to update to Pro at the touch of a button.

The greedy shareholders of Adobe have done a few lines of math and got a staggering billion dollar sign in their eyes after fantasizing that X percent of the hundreds of millions Average Joes and Plain Janes who use Adobe Reader to read their eBay invoices could be persuaded to subscribe to Pro.

As Gary Chrysler insightfully wrote elsewhere:

"Who owns majority of Adobe? This is absolutely crazy! No humans!!!!!
Largest shareholders include Vanguard Group Inc, BlackRock Inc, State Street Corp, VTSMX - Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund Investor Shares, VFINX - Vanguard 500 Index Fund Investor Shares, Morgan Stanley, Fmr Llc, Geode Capital Management, Llc, Jpmorgan Chase & Co, and Invesco Qqq Trust, Series 1."
https://acrobat.uservoice.com/users/6417502832-gary-chrysler

We can all move on, there will be nothing more to see here.