In certain conditions trying to open a PDF document with Adobe Reader X generates error “Before proceeding you must first launch Adobe Acrobat and accept the End User License Agreement“. Opening file from within Adobe Reader (File > Open) works fine.

Option 1

Enable Adobe Reader Protected Mode.
Open Adobe Reader X >  Edit > Preferences > General > Enable Protected Mode at startup.
Unfortunately “Protected Mode” often introduces some issues itself.

Option 2

It seems that bizarrely enough this error only occurs if anywhere in the file or path name there is a string ‘CR‘ (well done Adobe!). So another obvious workaround is to rename file/folder to get rid of ‘CR‘.

Option 3

Another fix via registry suggested by Patrick Hoban

1. Start > Run > Regedit
2. Navigate to: (if full path doesn’t exist, simply create missing keys)
   • 32bit OS:
     HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Adobe\Adobe Acrobat\10.0\AdobeViewer
   • 64bit OS:
     HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Adobe\Adobe Acrobat\10.0\AdobeViewer

   Create a new DWORD entry EULAAcceptedForBrowser and set value to 1