Adobe Acrobat / Reader DC Continuous 25.001.20982 failing to start: “Acrobat failed to load its Core DLL”

[Tom]

Today we received a number of reports about issues with Adobe Acrobat / Reader DC Continuous about it failing to start with the error: “Acrobat failed to load its Core DLL” after updating to version 25.001.20982.

This is caused by a faulty Adobe update and is not related to VulnDetect.

Shortly after receiving the first report, we changed the Recommended version to the previous one, thus effectively stopping new update tasks from being created.

Based on customer feedback and claims on various forums, it seems that installing the same architecture of the Microsoft Visual C++ 2015–2022 Redistributable as the installed Adobe Acrobat / Reader fixes the issue (for most). There are also reports that a full uninstall and reinstall of the previous version is required.

If in doubt, deploy the VC++ package first - it solves the issue for the majority.

You can do both things using SecTeer VulnDetect by using Tags and Deployment Jobs.

Adobe Acrobat Reader DC Continuous (x32)
https://corporate.vulndetect.com/#/applications/hosts?channelTag=adobe.acrobatreaderdc.default&title=Adobe Acrobat Reader DC Continuous (x32)

Adobe Acrobat Reader DC Continuous (x64)
https://corporate.vulndetect.com/#/applications/hosts?channelTag=adobe.acrobat.reader.dc&title=Adobe Acrobat Reader DC Continuous (x64)

Adobe Acrobat DC Continuous
https://corporate.vulndetect.com/#/applications/hosts?channelTag=adobe.acrobat.default&title=Adobe Acrobat DC Continuous

Note: Due to the way we detected Reader vs. Acrobat initially, and the way Adobe decided to handle 64-bit Reader, we ended up with architecture-specific detections for Reader, whereas Acrobat still covers both 32/64-bit.

On each of these links, you should select the hosts you need to “fix” and click Manage Tags for Selected Hosts, then assign a new tag that indicates the need to install the Visual C++ 2015–2022 Redistributable.

Under Deployment:
https://corporate.vulndetect.com/#/deployment/create-job

You should select Microsoft Visual C++ 2015–2022 Redistributable as appropriate and click Configure Deployment Job With X Application, then Select Tags, Groups or Hosts, find the newly created tag, click Set Job Name, adjust as you see fit, and finally click Create Deployment Job.

To speed up the deployment, you may want to go to Tags:
https://corporate.vulndetect.com/#/tags

Then click X Hosts and select as many hosts as you wish to initiate deployment to immediately. Note that clicking Inspect and Update Selected Hosts will initiate the deployment on all online hosts within a few minutes.

If you need to roll back Adobe Acrobat / Reader, you can also use Tags in a similar way to create a Deployment Job that uninstalls Adobe Acrobat / Reader, and then create a new one which installs it. Ensure that the Uninstall Job is set to “Install or uninstall once” and that it is attempted before you assign the Install Job. The Install Job may be set to “Always install or uninstall.”

Once Adobe publishes a fixed build, we will set it as the Recommended version so upgrades resume automatically.