RDS 2012R2/Profile Disk: Adobe Reader X says “There was an error opening this document. Access Denied”

--Anand-- Remote Desktop Services, Windows Server April 17, 2014May 2, 2014 1 Minute

PDF attachments from application is not opening correctly. Adobe Reader spits this error message.

We use RDS 2012 R2 and Profile Disks for the users. Somehow PDF files on the profile disk is having same issue with Adobe Reader.

Solution: It turn out to be new Adobe Reader software has Protected Mode feature. This feature has issues with Profile Disks and Roaming profiles. Just disable Protected Mode under Security (Enhanced) section in Preferences.

Hope this helped you. Leave me a reply. Smile

Published by --Anand--

Being in Silicon Valley for years, I became a IT Infrastructure Geek by experience and surrounded by other Geeks everywhere. I try to help others by the solutions I found on odd occasions. View all posts by --Anand--

Published April 17, 2014May 2, 2014

9 thoughts on “RDS 2012R2/Profile Disk: Adobe Reader X says “There was an error opening this document. Access Denied””

Bruno says:

May 1, 2014 at 8:10 am

Thank you for this Post. Turning off Protected Mode is no option for us, we have it enabled for security reasons.

In our enviroment we have redirected the desktop to a Network Share. When opening a PDF from the desktop, we recieve the same “Access Denied” message as you.

Surprisingly the PDF opens correctly if you delete the desktop.ini file from the desktop.

This behaviour doesn’t make any sense to me, and it’s also an insufficent workaround, but maybe it helps someone to find an ultimate solution for the problem.

Reply
Stijn says:

June 16, 2016 at 2:18 pm

Is there a solution to do this for all users? As far as I can tell every user needs to deselect the checkbox. In a large environment this is a problem. Anyone has a solution for this checkbox?

Reply
Mark says:

October 27, 2016 at 1:53 pm

We have both scenarios:
1. RDS 2012R2/Profile Disk
2. RDS 2012R2/Redirected profiles to fileshare.
We need to go to profile disks but I can’t because than I have problems with Adobe pdf files and printing issues. To solve that is to disable Adobe Protected Mode but not for us because it is a good security thing to have it on. It is also recommended by Adobe.
Hope someone have a solution.

Reply
Odarchuk Sasha says:

July 27, 2017 at 1:04 pm

Hi ALL!
How to disable it via GPO ????

Reply
Miguel Angel Rodriguez says:

February 15, 2018 at 12:33 pm

For Reader DC add GPO
User Configuration\Preferences\registry
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Policies\Adobe\Acrobat Reader\DC\FeatureLockDown
bProtectedMode = 0x00000000

Reply
1. odarchuk says:
  
  February 15, 2018 at 7:08 am
  
  but why Wow6432Node ???
  
  Reply
Preston says:

October 18, 2018 at 4:46 am

We have this issue in 2008 R2, Adobe Reader DC. Protected mode is turned off and we are using roaming profiles. We have yet to fix our issues, any other ideas?

Reply
DOIGNON says:

April 22, 2020 at 7:49 am

Thank you bro !

Same issue here with 2012 RDS with Pooled VDI desktop (win 10). I was stick with that for 3 days 🙂

I gonna take a look at GPO to generalize.

thank you.

Reply
Ruud says:

September 14, 2020 at 6:51 am

I see a lot of solutions that simply disable the protected mode, I found another solution.

My User Profile Disks are as lean as possible, but include the folder %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows.
When you open a pdf attachment from MS Outlook, it creates a temporary folder/file in Internet Explorer’s InetCache folder.
Default InetCache folder is %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\INetCache. So it’s on the UPD.

When a user logs on to a RDS server, I change the INetCache location:
Key: HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders
Name: Cache
Type: REG_EXPAND_SZ
Value: %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\INetCache

Now this folder is outside the UPD and Adobe Reader doesn’t have a problem with opening the file.

Reply