Adobe Reader DC has errors and crashes with Windows Server 2012 R2

Question

We recently installed Adobe Reader DC version of Adobe on our Windows Server 2012 R2 servers and are having issues since the launch. Few of the issues we have seen are as follows:
This version is a bit clunky and hangs.
Has a lot of pop-up boxes that appears each time I open a document.
Each time I open a document there is a Welcome pop-up box
It is a bit slow to respond between clicks
If I click on any options like File. The application hangs and then crashes. (see attached crash message)
Any help to resolve this would be helpful.
Thank you

Answer 1

I just had the same issue on a 2012 R2 Remote Desktop server. I fixed it by creating a registry key called Privileged under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Adobe\Acrobat Reader\DC and then creating a DWORD value in that key called bProtectedMode and setting the value to 0. This was on a brand-new server that never had a previous version of any Adobe software on it.
This is a major kludge. Hopefully Adobe will fix it soon. By the way, here's the crash signature we were getting:
Problem signature:
  Problem Event Name: APPCRASH
  Application Name: AcroRd32.exe
  Application Version: 15.7.20033.2203
  Application Timestamp: 5507d7da
  Fault Module Name: AcroRd32.dll
  Fault Module Version: 15.7.20033.2203
  Fault Module Timestamp: 5507d7bf
  Exception Code: c0000005
  Exception Offset: 00a085ad
  OS Version: 6.3.9600.2.0.0.16.7
  Locale ID: 1033
  Additional Information 1: ac05
  Additional Information 2: ac0507478d1c5bd693cfc4fe3987e900
  Additional Information 3: ac05
  Additional Information 4: ac0507478d1c5bd693cfc4fe3987e900
Reference:
Protected Mode — Acrobat Application Security Guide