404 Tech Support

Adobe adds Group Policy Administrative Templates to Adobe Acrobat and Reader DC

Adobe managed to push out more than just updates to Adobe Flash Player, Shockwave Player, and Adobe Acrobat Reader recently. They managed to push out the Group Policy Administrative Templates for Reader DC and Acrobat DC last week. The templates for Group Policy are available for download from the Adobe FTP site:

ftp://ftp.adobe.com/pub/adobe/acrobat/win/Acrobat2015/misc/AcrobatADMTemplate.zip

ftp://ftp.adobe.com/pub/adobe/reader/win/AcrobatDC/misc/ReaderADMTemplate.zip

The templates allow general configuration for computer-based and user-based settings. The download includes the modern .admx file and the classic .adm file. You can easily copy the .admx file and corresponding language file to your Central Store to allow simple editing of the policies from various computers.

The settings provide centralized management to some simple settings in the General and Security Preferences. This includes accepting the EULA on behalf of your organization, disabling the start up splash screen, controlling updates, and more.

The Group Policy templates add a little bit of convenience and centralized control to the end user experience. Unfortunately, they still fall short of being able to use Group Policy entirely over the Acrobat Customization Wizard. In particular, I would be interested in settings that allow disabling the upsell service experience in Reader DC but no such luck. Still, it adds some centralized control over a few settings that may be of importance to your organization.