Tech Info 119: Create PDF Server, Acrobat and Dialog

HELIOS Tech Info #119

Mon, 16 Mar 2009

Create PDF Server, Acrobat and Dialogs

When running Create PDF Server on Windows as a system service, jobs may get stuck if Adobe Acrobat tries to display a dialog.
System services on Windows run as user “SYSTEM”, so Acrobat's dialogs about registration, activation, demo expire time or updates are not shown to the user that is currently logged in.
To make dialogs being shown to the currently logged-in user, open the service's properties (Computer Management -> Services -> HELIOS Create PDF Server), select the tab “Log on”, and check “Allow service to interact with desktop”.
To avoid these dialogs and stuck jobs, you should activate Acrobat and disable registration and automatic updates.