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Disable display of PDF in browser

buuzta
Registered: Jun 26 2008
Posts: 3

Hi folks,

I'm searching for a solution to [b]gray-out[/b] Display of PDF in broswer, but users have to see, that it's [b]checked[/b].

Workaround with bBrowserIntegration=1 does it not fine enough ;) --> grayed-out, but unchecked

I'd like to have PDF displayed in browsers, checked in the configuration menu [b]and[/b] grayed-out.

Hope you can help me soon.

My Product Information:
Reader 8.1.2, Windows
dthanna
ExpertTeam
Registered: Sep 28 2005
Posts: 248
Buuzta,

This setting is one of those, that due to it's integration nature, is a but more difficult to detect it's opperation and control it's behavior.

In short, there are two locations that bBrowserIntegration needs to be adjusted -

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Adobe\Acrobat Reader\7.0\Originals\bBrowserIntegration

and

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Adobe\Acrobat Reader\7.0\FeatureLockdown\bBrowserIntegration

both are of type DWORD

Let's start with the first one - this is only a flag to indicate that the box has been checked and that Reader is properly setup for browser integration. Setting (1) and unsetting (0) this does not cause the GUI to switch. Why? Because there is a lot more to browser integration that just this. There are MIME types, file extensions and system classes that need to be adjusted to allow the linkage (and plugin) between Reader and IE to function one way or another.

The second one indicates if the box should be grayed or not. Thank you for discovering this one. I did not know about it. I would imagine that there are a great deal more settings that can be placed in this are to limit user setting control. The way this one works on key (name) existance only. If it is in the registry - regardless of the value - the item will be grayed out. The default value should be 0 (zero/zed)

OK - How to set this. First, with Browser Integration ungrayed, make the box checked (launch reader, check the box, close reader!).
Next, add the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Adobe\Acrobat Reader\7.0\FeatureLockdown\bBrowserIntegration

Now, when you re-launch Reader, you should find that it is both grayed and checked.

Three things -
1) Reader (and Acrobat for that matter) only save their registry settings upon proper application termination..
2) This general concept will work with Acrobat (Pro, Standard, Extended) as well. A5, 6, 7, 8 & 9 have the same registry structure for this feature.
3) How to, through installation scripting, actually check the Browser Integration box is an exercise left to the reader. The work is rather straightforward though.

Create a complete registry dump with the box unchecked. Check the box (close reader) and create a new complete registry dump. Compare the two (Windiff, good text editor (e.g. UltraEdit, MultiEdit), etc. can help out with this regards.

There will be some items you an ignore, but you should be able to narrow it down to a manageable group of settings.

Another tool that I find extremely helpful is Microsoft Process Monitor (Procmon) available on MS's web site.

While not the complete answer you were looking for, hopefully this will be enough information to get you to your goal with minor, straightforward, effort.

Thanks.

-Doug

Douglas Hanna is a member of the Production Print Technology team at Aon.
www.aonhewitt.com

buuzta
Registered: Jun 26 2008
Posts: 3
Hi Doug,

thanks a lot for your detailed response.


doug wrote:
OK - How to set this. First, with Browser Integration ungrayed, make the box checked (launch reader, check the box, close reader!).
Next, add the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Adobe\Acrobat Reader\7.0\FeatureLockdown\bBrowserIntegration
I tried your suggestion, but adding bBrowserIntegration to this path effected nothing. Only adding bBrowserIntegration to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE[b]\Policies[/b]\Adobe\Acrobat Reader\8.0\FeatureLockdown\ took the right effect and grayed out the box (unfortunately unchecked).

Thanks

Sebastian