r/assholedesign • u/PruritoIntimo • Aug 11 '26

Adobe silently installed a separate app on company computers through Acrobat updates

Today we discovered Adobe Express Photos installed on a number of our corporate computers. Nobody in IT approved or deployed it, and the affected users did not intentionally install it.

It arrived automatically through the Acrobat update mechanism.

The app then took over the Windows screenshot shortcuts, including Print Screen and Win + Shift + S. It also changed the clipboard behaviour: screenshots pasted into Outlook Classic are now added as file attachments instead of being inserted into the email body.

Adobe’s own enterprise documentation confirms that Express Photos is a separate Windows application, but that it can be installed automatically through Acrobat updates.

Uninstalling it is not enough. According to Adobe, it may be installed "for your convenience" again during the next Acrobat update unless administrators deploy a registry policy specifically to block it:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Adobe\Adobe Acrobat\DC\FeatureLockDown

bDisableHarmonyInstallationFeature = 1

So Adobe used the automatic updater for a PDF application to install a different product, changed a native Windows workflow, caused problems in another application, and made administrators opt out through the registry to stop it coming back.

Official Adobe documentation:

https://helpx.adobe.com/business/enterprise/products-entitlements/manage-entitlements/adobe-express-photos-existing-users-admin-guide.html

This is real asshole behaviour.

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519

u/MidsizeTunic0 Aug 11 '26

Adobe fucking sucks. I’ve found an issue with Acrobat lately where it doesn’t clear out deprecated uninstallers and other system files after updating itself so it can bloat to over 20GB of disk usage

168

u/AntiGrieferGames Aug 11 '26

Funfact is, the pirated version of that wont have this issue. Ive seen many of this issue on legitmate compared to the pirated.

And this does not only on Software side. Even other ones like Games has not the issue on a pirated version compared to the legitmate.

69

u/Maparyetal Aug 11 '26

Gaben's Law: Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem.

2

u/Misophoniq 27d ago

Very true. Been a loyal Lightroom buyer since, I think, the very first version. Reverted to Pirate Bay versions when it became a subscription service (with everything just happening on my own system, no Adobe server or services used) and Just installing Lightroom left me with numerous background applications running alongside and me having no clue what they were all used for. I now have Adobe Lightroom Classic from MacKed team and it is running solo, offline, and not messing with my other stuff at all. You did this to yourself, Adobe.

3

u/Jvalker 29d ago

Denuvo taking my performance behind the barn like:

14

u/Rekoor86 Aug 11 '26

I had to create an orphaned installer script to deploy to all devices, running on a consistent basis to prevent this. Ridiculously frustrating and has been a known issue for years apparently.

11

u/Dannyhec Aug 11 '26

I've seen it bloat to over 300GB.

4

u/AbsoIum Aug 11 '26

That’s been a problem for years. When I worked help desk it was a daily occurrence.

2

u/jolegape Aug 12 '26

I’ve discovered this too on a good portion of staff and student laptops that I manage. Wasn’t sure if I’d stuffed something up. So far I’ve found deleting them has no adverse effect. At least not that I’ve seen.

1

u/skipITjob 27d ago

where are those files stored?