a EDU file can be opened with a commercial license but the later will switch to EDU mode as long as that file is opened, any commercial file that you open in the EDU version and save will be switched to EDU and AC would give a warning about it.(I have to do this all the time to evaluate the projects students hand-in.)
This is what may be happening. You are opening the Commercial version of AC by double clicking the EDU file, this switches AC to educational.
For your mac problems you can do Command+I after selecting the file in Finder to open the file info and in "Open With" you can select the which program to use to open the file and apply it to all files.
To verify the problem, open Commercial AC first and from it browse to the file you want to open. If it changes to EDU then that file is not a commercial one. If not, changing the file settings should do the trick and as a rule I always open the program first then the file from within it.
Eduardo Rolón AIA NCARB
AC27 US/INT -> AC08Macbook Pro M1 Max 64GB ram, OS X 10.XX latest
another Moderator