Security settings for all users

Question

I recently developed a document that requires digital signatures and have been testing it. The only downside is that when a user opens the document, Adobe prompts for the installation of new security settings, and it installs it for that user only. I need to add a registry key to the new security settings, but it is only available to be added to the current user hive. Does anyone know how to install the new settings for all users?
Here is the registry key I need to add.
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Adobe\Adobe Acrobat\9.0\Security\cPubSec]
"bSelfSignCertGen"=dword:00000000
Im using Adobe Reader 9.3 and Win XP.
Any help would be terrific!
Thanks.

Answer 1

Hi,
There are really two separate issues. First, is Adobe pushing updates to the Acrobat Address Book (i.e. adding certificates as trust anchors) and the second issue is how you can push your own update to disable the creation of self-signed digital IDs. Although the two issues share an underlying mechanism, they are separate and you cannot leverage one for the other.
First issue first. Adobe has entered into partnership with certain Certificate Authorities and has created a mechanism to add their certificates to the Acrobat Address Book (aka Manage Trusted Identities) using http to send a copy of the Security Settings file that contains only digital IDs. There are two ways to trigger the download process. One is to go into the Preferences, select Trust Manager, and click the Update Now button in the Automatic Updates group box. The other method is to load the DigSig plug-in (beginning with Acrobat 9, plug-ins no longer load a launch in order to speed up the launch process). As I'm sure you have deduced, opening a file with a signature field cause the DigSig plug-in to load which in turn triggers the automatic download. The reason we have limited the automatic download to DigSig being loaded is because the vast majority of people viewing PDFs are not using the digital signature functionality (much to my personal chagrin because the more people use digital signatures, the better my job security ) and we didn't want to bother them with an update they would never need. People already complain that there are too many updates, and we are trying to limit the irritability factor. To close the loop on this function, once the download process has been triggered the Acrobat check two more things before it does the update, 1) has it been a month since I checked and, 2) if it has been a month is there a new file to download. This way we are not pestering people with unneeded updates, or if they do need the update, at least not too often. And finally, Address Book management has to be on a per user basis. A certificate that you may elect to trust could be a certificate that the next person want to specifically keep untrusted. The Windows Certificate Store, Mac Keychain and Firefox Certificate Manager all work on a per user basis.
That brings us to what you would like to do. The good news is you can use the Export Security Settings featrue to create a distributable file that will set the preference. The real question is how will you distribute the file, but before we get to that, here is how to create the file.
With Acrobat closed, set the registry setting you noted in the message above
Launch Acrobat
Select the Advanced > Security > Export Security Settings menu item
Click the Deselect All button on the Export Security Settings dialog
Select the Signing Preferences Settings checkbox
Click the OK button on the Export Security Settings dialog
Select Signature Creation Settings and note "Allow creation of self-signed Digital IDs" is set to No
Click the Export button on the toolbar
Follow the on screen dialogs. You don't have to encrypt the file, but you must sign it with a certifying signature
At this point you have the file available for distribution. You could e-mail it to your intended recipients with import instructions, or you could post if for download, or you could set the Preference the to automatically push the file from a server. To check this feature out select the Edit > Preferences menu item and then select Security from the Categories list box. You would need to select the Load security settings from a server checkbox and then set up the URL. As an aside, you can also export these settings by selecting the Automatic Update Settings checkbox on the Export Security Settings dialog noted in the bullet points above. You have a chicken and egg problem in that you have to get the users to first manually import the file in order to set up the automatic import. That I can't help you with, you're just going to have to decide what works best for you.
Good luck,
Steve