Hello everyone. I was wondering if there's a way that I can query our workstations in the network to retrieve either the full or partial serial number of our acrobat copies 7 & 8. We have a spreadsheet with serials and usernames but with people leaving and laptops being reassigned to new users the list has gotten a little 'confused'.

is it possible to accomplish this?

thanks

I know longer have acrobat installed, but if the key is stored in the registry it is not too dificult to query the machines and pull the needed information.

Try searching for a tool that can do that in google or your preferred search engine. I know there are some tools to retrieve serial numbers and registration info you use for getting full access to the programs that require that. There must be something for this software too.

I believe the latest beta of Magical Jelly Bean keyfinder supports it. Support for all sorts of software beyond Windows 'n Office has been added.

Check out these lines from the kenfinder.cfg file.

Adobe Acrobat 6|Serial=HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Adobe\Adobe Acrobat\6.0\Registration=SERIAL
Adobe Acrobat 7|Serial=HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Adobe\Adobe Acrobat\7.0\Registration=SERIAL
Adobe Acrobat 8.x|Serial=HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Adobe\Adobe Acrobat\8.0\Registration=SERIAL

joemsfn, thanks for the jellybean idea....i had forgotten about that nifty tool. I didnt know they were now doing other serial listings. this will save us from the doom of the missing serial numbers!

ok i tried the jelly bean and it does list a serial number but it's not the actual key that we have listed on our serial list. it seems like it's encrypted...if that's the case then why does jellybean say it can 'retrieve' serial numbers! :confused:

thanks,

ceez

If you install Acrobat on a machine with a known serial and check the associated registry key is it the right serial number? If not it could be Adobe encodes it in the registry. Or it is stored elsewhere, after installing search for the key or part of it in the registry to verify itsd location.

iceman, I tried that same thing you said with acrobat 8 standard and unfortunately it is NOT the same key.

now i really wonder why JB peeps would say that they can retrieve Adobe serials when they are useless (i am not saying ALL apps, just mentioning Acrobat since I bet there are other apps out that wont encrypt the serial#)

oh well. I guess we're screwed!

I setup a spiceworks server here after seeing it in a post here on msfn and i know it will scan and show what workstations have a product installed and the product version but it wont show the serial. -but it would at least give you a list of machines to check (assuming you dont already have one)

Well there is good news and bad news. The good news is that the key is encoded the same for every installation. The bad news is I've not found anything or discovered how they encoded the key. But if you are using site license keys you could install each of you licenses on a machine and get the encoded serial and then compare the encoded serial to the known matching serial.

Sorry for geting your hopes up. I don't really deal with Adobe Acrobat, but just noticed those lines in the magicaljellybean beta and thought it was worth mentioning.

plus 'magical jellybean' is just fun to say

plus 'magical jellybean' is just fun to say

hmmm....what happens if I plant it!!!! It's the Serial Tree!

plus 'magical jellybean' is just fun to say

hmmm....what happens if I plant it!!!! It's the Serial Tree!

I think you get a bean stalk to the goose that lays the golden jellybeans.

Belarc Advisor can get the keys for Acrobat.

I've been waiting for product key explorer to do it, but the program only gets the hash, but they don't seem to know how to decrypt the hash to get the key.

If anyone knows how to decrypt the hash like belarc can, i would appreciate any info

thanks