Cannot open multiple files with Adobe Reader X

This may be a result of where the files are located or their permissions if you have Protected Mode turned on in Reader X. You can try turning off Reader Protected Mode under the Edit > Preferences > General category and uncheck "Enable Protected Mode at startup" Of course, you should be aware of the potential risks associated with doing this by reviewing the Reader Protected Mode FAQ.

What's your operating system and do you have any other Adobe Reader or Acrobat versions installed?

I can't replicate the effect you're describing - Adobe Reader X is opening all the documents I select simultaneously.

Thanks for your reply.

My OS is Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP3 and I've not any other Acrobat product installed (before installing Reader X I remove Reader 9, then restart computer).

The lkassuba's solution works, but I don't understand well what means turning off Reader Protected Mode...

Thanks a lot.

Stefano

Protected Mode is a security feature introduced in Adobe Reader X, which places PDF files in a sandbox environment, which stops them from being able to perform malicious actions on your computer. It's intended to deal with PDFs from unknown sources (web, email, etc.) that might have been created to do harm, or contain attachments that try to install dangerous programs. Even if your antivirus software doesn't detect the threat, Protected Mode stops the file from being able to read and write to your operating system files, install applications, etc.

Turning it off temporarily is OK if you trust the origin of the files you're opening, but Adobe strongly advises it's left turned on when browsing the Web or opening email attachments from people you don't know.

Thanks.

I usually read PDFs coming from plenty of sources (mails, web documents, etc.) so I don't know if the files are potentially dangerous for my PC.

Is there any alternative solution in order to open multiple files without turning off the protected mode? Note that I've not the same problem with Reader 9.x!

Thanks.

Stefano

Reader 9 didn't have Protected Mode, which is why you didn't experience this problem previously. When I was trying to reproduce the problem on my machine, I did notice that if you had an existing PDF open in Reader then you could use the right-click technique to open additional files. Perhaps you could use this as an alternative.

Thanks a lot to all.

Stefano

I am having the same problem as Stephano. However I am using Windows7 and the fixes proposed by Lori -- i.e. remove protected mode and try right-clicking -- didn't work. Anybody have any other ideas?

I am also having the same problem. Whether protected mode is enabled or not I get one window per PDF. I've also get video driver conflicts if I open than about 5 or 6 at once. The driver crashes, locks the PC for a few seconds, then restarts and recovers. This is making Acrobat Reader X unusable! If this problem cannot be fixed I will have to go back to Reader 9 - which I don't consider a great loss - All I want is a reliable PDF reader and Reader X seems overbloated with useless features and enhancements as if its trying to turn itself into a web browser). However, I would rather keep Reader X if possible as it should ensure I can read future PDFs that won't work in earlier versions, it should be more secure and is less likely to cause trouble with IE9.

Here are my particulars.
Acrobat Reader 10.1.0.
Windows 7 Pro 64bit SP1 complete with all updates.
IE9 with all updates.
HP Laptop with Core i7 processor & 8GB RAM
NVidia Quadro graphics with CUDA (don't ask me what that means!). As far as I can tell the drivers are the latest.
Let me know if there's anything more you need to know.

Quick update. The video driver problem is getting worse. I've got just three PDF files open at the moment and attempting to scroll one of them has just reset the display driver. It looks like there is an incompatibility between Reader X and the NVidia driver. I know there's a possibility the problem lies with NVidia or Windows (DirectX?), but I think it needs filing as a bug report for further invesitgation. How do I go about doing that?

Feature Requests/Bug Report Form
.
https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/mmform/index.cfm?name=wishform
.

Thanks.

OK, things are getting stranger. I've submitted a bug report and assume that will be dealt with in due course. As I need an immediate fix to stop the crashes I've downgraded to Reader 9.4 downloaded straight from the website. This has had the latest update applied so its now 9.4.5 Unfortunately it is behaving in exactly the same way as 10, opening multiple Reader windows (one per document) and then crashing the display driver. In fact, the last time it did it I ended up blue screened with the fault reported as a timeout trying to restart the display driver. So, I've now tried Reader 9 under XP Mode. This is still has the same window per document problem as before, although thankfully it is not crashing the Windows 7 display driver as it is being isolated from Acrobat by XP Mode.

Just to make sure I'm not going crazy, I dug out my old XP Laptop to see how it behaved. That has Reader 8 installed and is behaving perfectly, opening all documents in the same copy of Acrobat. This is the behaviour I need as I can have anything between 2 and 30 PDF documents open at the same time. I need them open as I may have to refer to many of them in rapid succession, sometimes flipping back and forth between them. This makes it impractical to open each as i need to look at it, then close it and move to the next. Even if the screen crash problem is fixed, having all the documents open in separate Acrobat windows isn't good as it clutters the task bar. I think what I will probably do is downgrade XPMode to Reader 8 and then wait to see what happens in the future.

What you encounter (opening every document in its own window) is normal behavior in Acrobat/Reader 9 and 10. That was a choice made by Adobe, and it is not considered to be a bug. If the crashes occur even with the simplest PDFs, it looks to me more like an issue with your machine, as you are definitely not the only one dealing with multiple documents.

That said, you can't find many people regularly working with multiple documents who are happy with that design decision, and it has been expressed to Adobe in many levels of tone that this decision was a mistake (and makes Acrobat/Reader a humunguous resource gobbler). The fun thing is that at the time that decision was taken, tabbed viewing was already common all over the place…

If you depend on the feature to have multiple documents under the same window, you either stay with Acrobat/Reader 8, or you look for third-party viewers…

Hope this can help.

Max Wyss.

Max,

Thanks for the update. I'm glad I'm not the only one unhappy with the change!

I would have said the crashing was related entirely to my machine except for two things. First, it only happens with Acrobat Reader. None of the other applications I use have any problems with the display driver, and I run quite a wide range from mainstream stuff like MS Office 2003 to AutoCAD LT 2008 to application specific software written by relatively small companies, to open source software (GIMP) to old stuff that really shouldn't be run under Windows 7, yet still runs faultlessly. Second, it only happens when I have multiple PDF documents open. I suspect it is something to do with the way Acrobat is handling DirectX and is an incompatibility with Acrobat and the NVidia driver. I've not tinkered with the standard HP setup so I don't think its anything I've done. Without a doubt there is something about this machine that is causing the problem, it is just very odd that Acrobat is the only one that shows it up. I think perhaps I might try loading a DirectX game that is going to give the graphics a bit of a workout and see if it crashes then. That would at least give me some idea of whether the problem is more closely related to Acrobat or HP/NVidia.

Don't know if it's the same problem, but ever since Adobe auto-updated on my machine last week, it seems to have developed a crazy bug which has made it unusable in practice. I'm on XP, and can't load more than one PDF at a time. I've found that if I wait as long as 18 minutes, the second-clicked PDF *may* show up, but when I'm doing cross-referencing, this is beyond useless! Does anyone know how to fix this problem or is it just that Adobe have fluffed it and I need to downgrade to 9?

I have a somewhat different problem, which I also "solved" by turning off Protected Mode. I cannot open a file on the network drive with Protected Mode turned on. If I copy that file to my C: drive, it opens just fine.
Like a previous poster, this started when I upgraded from 9.x to Reader 10.1.0. When I start up Reader X and try to open a file, it shows in the selection box. Then when I choose it, an error message comes up: "The path does not exist."

Is there some way to indicate to the Reader program that files on my own network are safe, so that I can turn Protected Mode back on ? I had a similar problem with an unrelated database program on another network, which was solved by including the network server in "Local Intranet" under Tools/Options/Security in Internet Explorer. The program had nothing to do with a browser or the internet, but it borrowed its settings from IE. In this case, changing the IE settings did not help.
P.S. Windows XP Pro SP3

cannot open files on the Network with Protected Mode turned on

Has it become that much slower, the update X?
It seems like it takes 2x longer than it used to. My PC is not that fast, so it's a big difference.