Acrobat 9 Pro - Serial Number Problem - 3 Separate Licenses

Question

I own 3 separate licenses of Acrobat 9 Pro and have owned several licenses going clear back to Acrobat 6.  We have used them on the office computers and home or laptop just as the license authorizes.
Recently we had a problem of employees getting confused as to which license or Serial Number of 9 Pro was installed on which machine and apparently the number of authorized installs was exceeded.   The solution to that was to go around and try to determine which SN was installed on which computer.
With all prior versions, this was an easy task.  You simply clicked on the Help tab and selected the About option and it gave you a screen that showed the SN of the license installed on that computer.   That way you could keep straight which was installed on which, and you could that way monitor employees so that the authorized number of installs were not exceeded and that deactivation had been done properly.  We had a new computer we needed to install 9 Pro on but we needed to know the SN on the old machine in order to make sure we had the deactivation done properly.
I was taken by surprise to discover that this method of determining the installed SN would not work on 9 Pro.  The "About" screen showed no SN. It showed patent information and credits, but no SN.  I checked this on all three licenses and it was the same on each one.
I called Tech Support and got into the support problem from Hell over what should be a simple issue.  I went through 4 separate techies and 5 different calls. After spending most of the day dealing with this issue, and a substantial loss of revenue.  I was given completely wrong information by 3 of the techies (called lies in my culture) and the 4th one claimed there was no possible way to determine the SN of the license running on any individual computer under 9 Pro.
I then called the sales department for volume licensing and was told that if I bought 3 licenses under the volume license program, I could have one serial number and get rid of the 3 SN problem.  I was told that I could get a refund on my 3 separate licenses and this would fix my problem.  I stated 3 times that I would buy the volume licenses only if I was guaranteed a refund for the 3 separate licenses.  Each time I was assured that would occur.  After the new sale for the volume licenses was completed, I was transferred to another department for the refunds and the refund request was refused!!!!   It took the rest of that day and part of the next to get a response back from the sales person that sold me the volume licenses and get that transaction cancelled.  They still charged my credit card and then it took several more days to get that reversed.  On top of all of that, Adobe keeps attempting to close my support incident claiming it is resolved when it most certainly is not.
I have been computing for over 20 years and I would have to say this was the worst tech support treatment I have ever experienced.  I am simply amazed and disgusted.  As a user of Acrobat over many years,  I am so mad that if 10 users wanted to file a class action suit against Adobe, I might do it for nothing.
Can anyone tell me if there is any way to determine the SN of the license of 9 Pro that is running on a computer?  If not, how else can you keep straight which install is on which computer and which needs to be deactivated when you replace the computer or try to move it to another?
This would seem to me to be a huge problem and I am extremely surprised that Adobe seems to simply be ignoring it and that the tech support people are telling fibs.
Any information would be most appreciated.

Answer 1

Sorry that you got such a hassle. Try this. I don't have Acrobat 9 per se, but I have the TCS2 and found the following.
Run Regedit (all the serious warning apply here. Look but don't touch).
Under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHNINE->SOFTWARE->Adobe->Repair->Adobe Acrobat->9.0->IOD Look under the entry under SERIAL.
Maybe it works maybe it doesn't. But it might help.
Message was edited by: MichaelKazlow