TechNote

Disable the Fedex-Kinko's Print Service in Acrobat, Acrobat 3D 8 and Adobe Reader

What's covered

Disable the Print Service on Windows in the registry
Disable the Print Service on Windows with the Customization Wizard
Disable the Print Service on Windows using GPO
Disable the Print Service on Macintosh

Administrators can disable the Send to Fedex-Kinko's option in Acrobat 8.1, Acrobat 3D 8 and Adobe Reader by modifying the applicaiton options in either Windows and Macintosh operating systems. Additionally, these changes can be added to network deployments to Windows systems.

Disable the Print Service on Windows in the Windows registry

To disable the Print Service on Windows, you should locate or create the appropriate registry key.

Disclaimer: This procedure involves editing the registry. Adobe doesn't provide support for editing the registry, which contains critical system and application information. Make sure to back up the registry before modifying it. For more information about the registry, refer to Windows Help.

To back up the registry and then add/modify theregistry values:

Open RegEdit.
- On Windows XP, go to Start > Run, type in regedit and click OK.
- On Windows Vista, go to the Start menu, type in regedit in the Search field and double-lick on regedit.exe
Choose File > Export.
Select Local Disk C for the Save in: location.
Type backup for File Name.
Choose All for the Export Range.
Click Save.
Navigate to the appropriate registry key.
- Adobe Acrobat and Acrobat 3D 8: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Adobe\Adobe Acrobat\8.0\FeatureLockdown
- Adobe Reader: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Adobe\Acrobat Reader\8.0\FeatureLockdown
Modify or add bFedExInternetPrinting and set the dword value to 1.
Close RegEdit.
Restart the application.

Disable the Print Service on Windows with the Customization Wizard

The Adobe Customization Wizard 8 is a free downloadable utility that allows you to customize the Acrobat installer and application features prior to enterprise-wide deployments. If your application is not yet installed, you can customize the main product installer and then apply the patch in a second transaction, or you can customize the product installer and apply the patch in a single transaction. You can find the Customization Wizard at www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=3564.

Registry changes can be deployed in the Customization wizard by using the Registry pane:

On the system you are configuring your package, use the steps in the previous section to set the bFedExInternetPrinting registry key locally.
Open your package in the Customization Wizard and go to the Registry pane.
Find the registry key and value in the upper pane.
Drag the key and value to the appropriate key in the lower 'Destination Computer' pane.
Finish configuring the installer with the Wizard for any other settings relevant to your deployment.
Save the modified installer file and exit the Wizard.
Use the installer to install the customized application package.

You can also use the Direct Editor to modify the package tables. This should only be attempted by administrators who are familiar with how Acrobat install packages are configured. Adobe Technical Support cannot support editing package tables with the Direct Editor.

For further information on either process, see the help in the Customization Wizard.

Disable the Print Service on Windows using GPO

In enterprise environments that use Windows, administrators often use Group Policy Objects (GPOs) to propagate registry-based changes across a domain on-demand. Since the GPOs Administrative Template allow you to deploy modifications to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE and the Fedex Kinkos key is under HKLMs Policies key, you can control this feature independently of any product install or product patch.

Administrators should be familiar with editing GPO Administrative Templates. However, at a high level the process is as follows:

Open the Administrative Template.
Add bFedExInternetPrinting and set its value to 1.
Save and close the template.

Disable the Print Service on Macintosh

To disable the Print Service on Macintosh, you should create the appropriate key in the plist file within the Acrobat or Adobe Reader application

Navigate to the Acrobat or Adobe Reader Package.
Right mouse click (or Control + click) and choose Adobe Acrobat Professional or Adobe Reader.
Select Show Package Contents from the pop-up menu.
Navigate to Contents > MacOS folder > Preferences.
Open the FeatureLockDown file.
Add the FedExInternetPrinting key if it is not present.
Set the FedExInternetPrinting to true; for example, /FedExInternetPrinting [/b true]
Restart the application.

For example, here is the first line of the FeatureLockDown file with FedExInternetPrinting key added and set to ftrue:

<< /FedExInternetPrinting [/b true] /DefaultLaunchAttachmentPerms [ /c << /BuiltInPermList [ /t (version:1|.ade:3|.adp:3|.app:3|.asp:3|.bas:3|.bat:3|.bz:3|.bz2:3|