Adobe Reader Performance with Protect Mode On

Question

We are getting very poor performance in opening PDF documents with Adobe Reader XI with Protected Mode on, particularly for users remote from our central server.  With Protected Mode off, performance is much better (10-20X faster opening).  Note that we are running Windows 7 with Application Data Roaming and Adobe Reader XI with Protected Mode on, Protected View off, and Advanced Security on.  We have diagnosed the problem as follows: We are using the Windows 7 Application Roaming Data feature to house some profile data for our remote users, and when they try to open a PDF document with Protected Mode on, Adobe sends numerous I/O packets (approximatel 6000!) across the "wire" for security checking against the Application Roaming data file on the central server, thus greatly slowing PDF opening.  We would like to know the following: 1) Is there a way to turn-off Protected Mode for company server stored documents, while keeping it active for documents received from external sources (e.g. from the internet, e-mail, etc.). 2) is there a way to have Protect Mode security verification done only on the local machine profile data and not on the centrally stored Application Roaming Data file (thus greatly reducing the "across the wire" I/O traffic).  Thanks for any help, CCB.

Answer 1

I don't think any of the scenarios you are envisaging are possible.  Protected Mode is enabled/disabled on a user basis (in HKEY_USERS).