Suppress Adobe Product Improvement Program Pop-Up by Using Microsoft Group Policy Preference or AppSense Environment Manager

I implemented this a few years back, when I needed to eliminate any unneeded pop-up to my users. In this case, it was for Adobe Reader. Newly created profiles will have this automatically pop-up when they launched Adobe Reader  for the first time.

Adobe Product Improvement Program - Help Improve the Adobe Reader Experience.

The screen also can be triggered by going to Help | Improvement Program Options...

These steps will help to disable the Improvement Program Options menu, and consequently suppress the pop-up. Note that it requires registry editing, so be extremely careful. Note that the steps mentioned are for Adobe Reader 11. If oy used different version, ensure your key path refers to correct version (SOFTWARE\Policies\Adobe\Acrobat Reader\11.0)

Using GPP : 

1.  Launch GPMC, and go to target GPO.  Edit the policy, and navigate to Computer Configuration | Preference | Windows Settings | Registry, right click at Registry, hover to New and click at Registry Item
   
   
   
   
   
2.  Ensure Hive is changed to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
   
   
   
3. Use below info to fill up the form :
   Key Path : SOFTWARE\Policies\Adobe\Acrobat Reader\11.0\FeatureLockDown
   Value Name : bUsageMeasurement
   Value Type : REG_DWORD
   Value Data : 0
   Base : Decimal
   
   
   
   
4.  Reboot the target machine. Once it is up, log in to computer, and launch Adobe Reader. No Improvement Program pop-up appeared, and Improvement Program Options... is no longer listed  in Help menu.
   
    

Using AppSense Environment Manager : 

1. Launch AppSense Environment Manager, right click at Process Started | choose Node
   
   
   
   
2.  Change the information for Condition and Match accordingly, then click OK
   Condition : Equal to
   Match : AcroRd32.exe
   
   
   
   
3. At workspace on the right side, right click at the Process condition, and navigate to Conditions | Registry | and choose Registry Value Exists. This step is to check whether the needed value is existed or not.
   
   
   
4. Fill up all needed info by following below information :
   Hive : HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
   Key : SOFTWARE\Policies\Adobe\Acrobat Reader\11.0\FeatureLockDown
   Value Name : bUsageMeasurement
   Value Type : REG_DWORD
   Comparison : Not Equal To
   Value Data : 0
   Base : Decimal
   
   
   
   
5. You may also want to give a bit of description and notes to the setting. Select OK.
   
   
   
   
6.  This is the outcomes, so far.
   
   
   

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How To Change NetBIOS Name of A Computer

So yes... After 4 months without new contents, so I started with this. It looks easier to do (well, it is), but before you do that, you may want to read this to understand the difference between hostname and netBIOS, then starts to explore on when to use them, their limitations etc etc. I won't discuss here (or maybe not today). So let's back to the topic.

 Description :
Changing NetBIOS Name of A Computer.

ComputerName :

NetBIOS :

How To Do :

1.  Go to Start > Run, and type REGEDIT
2.  Browse to Computer > HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > SYSTEM > CurrentControlSet > Control > ComputerName > ComputerName
   
   
   
3. At the right side, double click at ComputerName string, and put correct Value data. Press OK.
   
4.  Then you will get this
   
5. Reboot your computer / VM.
6. Once it is up, double check your netBIOS name. New name shall be reflected
   

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