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ACROBAT: Floating License

enricomigliore
Registered: Jan 25 2011
Posts: 8

Hi,
 
we are a small firm of three persons.
We have a license of Acrobat Professional 7.0 which is installed on our server.
When one of us needs to use Acrobat, he has to sit in front of the server.
 
We would like to upgrade to Acrobat 9.0. Is there any way to do the following thing:
 
1) Install Acrobat 9.0 on three computers
 
2) Install the license on the server
 
3) Configure Acrobat 9.0 to read the license from the server.
  
In this way, Acrobat will be used by one person at a times.
  
thanks in advance,
Enrico

UVSAR
Expert
Registered: Oct 29 2008
Posts: 1357
Simple answer, no. Acrobat (and all desktop Adobe products) use a local license manager, and each retail software key is only valid for one user - where "user" means a person, not a company. An Acrobat seat can be installed on one primary computer and on one secondary (e.g. a laptop for the user to use at home or in the field), provided the two copies are never used at the same time.

Adobe offers volume licensing systems for enterprise customers such as TLP, but they still require locally-entered license keys for every seat.
ds123
Registered: Apr 21 2011
Posts: 1
There is an easy way to do this.

Pros: works for any software, not just Acrobat.

Cons: No queue. One user may be able to kick off someone already using the machine (I've not tested this).

How to do it
Set up the server (or any other computer that won't be used by an individual) to accept remote desktop connections.
When someone needs to use the software, they make a remote desktop connection across the network to access the computer. It's just like being there in front of the computer, only you're somewhere else. You can also share resources with your local computer, such as hard drives.

I do this all the time. I have several computers and operate them all from my primary computer. Works great. I've not shared my computers with others, but other than what I noted above, this should be no problem. You may have to manage access by email, IM or (gasp) actually talking to someone.

Good luck!

Douglas Samuel
Technical Writer

UVSAR
Expert
Registered: Oct 29 2008
Posts: 1357
ds123 wrote:
There is an easy way to do this.
This is NOT permitted for Acrobat. The software is licensed to a user, not to a server. Remoting the desktop would only be possible if ONLY the licensed user was to access the system - it cannot be shared with other people.