Registry key

Steve,

Don't pull your hair out - takes 7-years for the folicles to recover and grow anew! Then your S.O. will think you have mange or something like that.

The
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Software\Adobe\Acrobat\Exe
Is the link that points to where the default exe is located for the application.

The first line of attack would be to remove Reader, reboot, then reinstall. It should pop up asking you what you would like for your default app. Choose Reader over Acrobat (default).

The critical thing to keep in mind that in a browser it's not the file extension that drives the app launch but the MIME type.

As I am not an FF user (not by choice, corporate policy) I cannot provide you with specific details, but within FF, under the settings/options/preferences area you should be able to find a list of all the various MIME types (you want 'application/pdf'). There you should be able to change the application pointer to the desired installation.

Second line ...

If you want to hack the registry, HKey_Classes_Root\.pdf is it's entry. Under there, dig out the HKey_Classes_Root\.pdf\ShellEx entry - you will find a long hex string in {}, grab the DATA element out of the (Default) entry for the aforementioned string. This is the desitination pointer you want to traverse.

Copy the string into your clipboard then do a search on it...

Mine traversed to a registry entry that caughed up:
"C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 8.0\Acrobat\pdfprevhndlrshim.exe"

Hurm... PDF Preview Handler Shim? Shoulds promising. Keep digging from there.

And yes, there are direct entries for the PDFPrevHndlrShim and PDFPreviewHandler, with CLSID's that point back to their respective entries.

Be careful - you can very easily turn your fine running workstation into a rather expensive brick through one errant keystroke. Registry changes are immediate with no 'undo'.

Personally, I would really try the remove Reader and reinstall avenue first. If that doesn't work, right click, save the PDF to the desktop (or some other temp local store) and open them from there. As you can see, this stuff can get rather tortous in its tracing out.

Sorry I couldn't give you a definitive answer, but hopefully some hope and ideas.

Thanks.

Doug

Hi Doug,
i read your profile and realized you are the person to approach for my 2 questions.
I have Acrobat 9 Pro Extended and windows vista home. I am still not able to see preview of files in Outlook 2007 pane. I succeeded doing that by installing Foxit Preview Handler by Tim Huer, but i want the Adobe version. Please advise.
My 2nd question is how to see print preview in an open pdf file after you have edited or used the typewriter tool --before you actually print it. There is no preview command button on the menu. Please help.

Thanks!
Yash

Hi Doug,
how will i know that you have got my question or not ? you could be thinking about it or may have not read it at all . Please reply.
Thanks
Yash

Yash,

Sorry about that - I wasn't ignoring you. E-mail notification can be a bit sporadic.

Unfortunately I do not have access to neither Vista nor Outlook 2007, so diagnostics will be rather problematic on this end.

Regarding 'preview' after using the typerwriter tool. There isn't one because there isn't a need for one. The typerwriter tool lays down text that is, for all intentes and purposes, part of the page data. Unlike Comments (including the Free Text tool) which are actually not part of the page data. They can be, conceptually, considered data on a layer above the page data.

So, with the typerwriter tool, what you see is what you are going to get. If it's something large and you just want to make sure, print it back through the Adobe PDF printer. Now you know what you're going to get.

Sorry that I couldn't help on the first and hope this helps with the second. As well as the delayed response.

Sincerely,

There is a proposed working fix for the 64-bit Preview Handler in the following U2U forum post:
http://forums.adobe.com/message/2235903#2235903