The whole Adobe DRM infrastructure is pretty user hostile; poor for computer people and terrible for its target audience of non-computer people. Also not properly supported by Adobe because they say 'well, Digital Editions is free anyway'; not mentioning it is an essential part of their ability to make a profit by licensing their DRM. User pressure in the music industry almost got rid of DRM: I'm sure we all (users anyway) look forward to that level of maturity in eBooks.
~~~
Back to the actual points ... One reason that sometimes causes E_ADEPT_REQUEST_EXPIRED problems is if a device (or computer) is not set to the right time zone. Double-check that.
The initial download is a .acsm files, that is just a token and doesn't contain any book data, and is not directly associated with an AdobeID. It is when you process the .acsm file with ADE by opening it that (if all goes well) ADE contacts the server and downloads a .epub file with appropriate DRM for the registered Adobe ID.
Sorry, I should have said: to drag and drop you drag FROM explorer and drop TO the ADE program itself.
I agree the process is somewhat clunky, but not too bad once it is working properly.
- Download from the library
- Double-click the downloaded .acsm file in your browser
- That opens ADE which downloads the .epub file and opens it for you.
- You can then drag in ADE Library view onto a connected eReader (if that is what you want).