There was an error opening this document. Access denied.

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Adobe Acrobat Reader not opening PDF files in terminal server (Remote Desktop)

Posted on 13 March 2019 by Beaming Support

Have you tried opening a PDF document when you are using a terminal server, but when it opens in Adobe Acrobat Reader DC it doesn’t seem to display, or it prompts you with “There was an error opening this document. Access denied”?

There was an error opening this document. Access denied

We have a simple tip that should restore the program and allow you to open those documents again.

Step 1 – Acrobat Reader Preferences

Open the Adobe Acrotbat Reader DC program (you may find this on your desktop, or in your start items).

Adobe Acrobat preferences

Please then press Edit and select Preferences.

Step 2 – Navigate to Security (Enhanced)

Adobe Acrobat Security (Enhanced)When you have opened preferences, you will see a settings pane on the left side with a list of options to choose from.

Please select Security (Enhanced). This will prompt you with a page, at the top of which you will see three options. We specifically want to focus on “Enable Protected Mode at Startup

Step 3 – Untick Enable protectd mode at startup

All you need to do is un-tick the box highlighted below.

Adobe Acrobat stop protected mode

If you are prompted with a warning window, please press yes..

Now it should look like this:

Adobe Acrobat disable protected mode

Step 4 – Close down adobe Acrobat and open A PDF File

Now that his has been un-ticked, please close the dialogue box, and also close down all instances of Adobe Acrobat Reader DC. You should now be able to open PDF files with no problems.

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