TechLifeWeb

For home use, Adobe Acrobat is bloat-ware. It takes a long time to load and comes with a ton of extra features that most people don’t need at home. I always uninstall it (if the computer I bought came with it) and install Foxit. Foxit is lightweight and fast.

However, in the enterprise, Acrobat Reader is often needed or required to work with certain software. Where I work we use it for Qumas eDocCompliance to view and annotate PDFs. This is fine until you have to upgrade versions. Adobe Acrobat Reader does not upgrade well in my opinion. And, worse, when you uninstall it leaves bits in the Windows Registry that will have you tearing you hair out because the don’t get updated when you install the new version and, thus, point to places that no longer exist.

I have been following the procedure I am about to outline for more than a year on any computer at work that I need to upgrade (or downgrade) Acrobat Reader. It seems to have solved many of the problems for me. Note, this does require some mucking about in the Windows Registry so if you aren’t comfortable with that, find someone who is.

Each step is critical including and especially the reboot!

• Close all running programs including Microsoft Office programs
• Uninstall the current version of Acrobat Reader and any updates by going to Add or Remove Programs in the Control Panel
• Reboot the computer
• Delete c:\program files\adobe
• Open up regedit (Click Start -> Run -> type Regedit) navigate to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT
• Delete any keys in they begin with Acro. There could be just a couple or there could be many. Just right click on each on and select delete. Here is a sample screen shot:

• Install Adobe Acrobat Reader
• Launch Adobe Acrobat Reader and accept the EULA
• In Acrobat reader go to Edit -> Preferences -> Updates
• Change ‘Check for Updates’ to Manually
• Deselect ‘Display Notification dialog at startup’

Hopefully this will help solve some Acrobat Reader mysteries.