acrotray.exe - what is it? Easily explained

You may have noticed the acrotray.exe background process on your PC. This tip tells you exactly what acrotray.exe is and how the process is related to Adobe Acrobat.

acrotray.exe: Adobe Acrobat Distiller utility - no danger

• The acrotray.exe process is an auxiliary program for Adobe Acrobat Distiller. The process is responsible for converting documents to PDF files.
• Generally speaking, the process is safe. However, a virus or spyware can still copy and use the acrotray.exe name.
• If you don't actually have Adobe software installed or if you notice a strange background program called acrotray.exe, you should check the location of the process.
• Open the Task Manager with the key combination [Ctrl] + [Alt] + [Del] and click on the "Processes". Right click on the acrotray.exe process and select "Properties".
• If "Location" is a path in the Windows folder, your acrotray.exe process may be virus or spyware. In this case, run the Antivir and Malwarebytes antivirus scanners on your PC. If your virus software fails, you should follow the instructions in the video below.

Disable acrotray.exe when Windows starts

If it is not a pest, you can still disable the benign process. If you do not use Adobe Reader or the aforementioned function for creating PDF files anyway, the deactivation saves resources.

1. Open the Task Manager again and switch to the "Autostart" tab at the top.
2. Look for the entry "AcroTray" here.
3. Right-click on the entry and select the "Deactivate" option.
4. From now on, the process will no longer start with Windows. If you should create a PDF with Adobe Reader, the process is started manually.

If acrotray.exe cannot be terminated on your PC, you can force the process to close.