I'm still trying to find the definitive, once and for all, current (December 2016) post/doc page that explains exactly how to make sure a serialized Acrobat DC installation properly activates every single time on every single computer. We have a volume license contract. We have both a CC Enterprise serial and an Acrobat DC 12.1 Continuous serial. Using the DC Customization Wizard, I've been trying every combination of which serial to use, whether to click the Grant Offline button or not, whether to enable the shady (because Adobe's documentation doesn't acknowledge it even exists) "Allow standalone Acrobat deployment with CCE serial" checkbox, and whether or not the language options are also contributing to the utterly inconsistent behavior not only across multiple computers but even on individual computers. No matter what combination I've tried, I can get it to work on some computers and not on others.
Basically, on a computer that has no other Adobe software installed, things seems to be working whether the package was created to use the DC serial or the CCE serial. I'm installing using the setup.exe command, so nothing too elaborate or complicated. It is when there are already other Adobe CC products installed when things are usually going off the rails. Sometimes Acrobat DC launches and I can see it creates the proper swidtag XML file under the regid.1986-12.com.adobe folder, but other times it doesn't. When it doesn't, I check the amt3.log file and look for the most recent "AMT: Starting Data Collection for SWTag_Init()" line and it appears to mess up where it doesn't add MUL to the SWTag_Init() Tags Arguments line and then the next line will be "License Status = unlicensed". But, here's the thing, I've been able to delete the newly created swidtag file, relaunch, and sometimes on the second or third try somehow it magically works. It will add MUL and then License Status = serialized. Close and re-launch again and it will then finally change to License Status = activated. So, I can get different behavior by doing nothing but deleting the swidtag file and re-trying. In other words, the Acrobat DC licensing scheme appears to utterly random.
On other computers, though, no matter how many times I tried that, nothing worked. I had the uninstall Acrobat DC, run the AdobeAcroCleaner_DC2015.exe util and try over. In most cases, that has worked, except on computers with PhotoShop or Illustrator installed, then those programs are no longer validated and they no longer work and I'm back to deleting the swidtag files and hoping for the best.
It just really gets me that if you have a valid serial number how it can be this complicated. No other product (and we have dozens and dozens) I've installed in over 20 years now has been this hard to consistently, 100% of the time get it to work, and that includes Acrobat XI and prior versions. Not until we had to start moving to Acrobat DC has this become a problem. Acrobat XI always worked as expected.
I'm pretty sure I've already read every single documentation page and forum post on this subject, but if anyone has the definitive, sure-fire way to make a serialized installation of Acrobat DC work every single time, all the time, every day, every night, on any computer, please let me know.