Adobe Acroscum permabreaks .PDF extension handling

[Cunjo]

...and Adobe won't tell me how to fix it unless I pay them $40.

So... does anyone here know how?

I had some old version of Adobe Acrobat Professional installed a long time ago, but it stopped working properly, and caused both IE and Firefox to crash when trying to open a .PDF document, and since I never used it for anything, I uninstalled it.

With Firefox I use a PDF downloader extension to automatically save PDF files to the disk rather than opening them, and so I can always open them with Foxit Reader. The problem arises when a website insists on using scripting in my browser to retrieve the .PDF and launch it in the window, rather than just linking me to the document. When that happens, I always get an error saying it couldn't find/launch Acrobat. My file associations in Windows explorer are fine, but the browser for whatever reason can't see those associations, and has been hard-coded to use Acrobat, which doesn't exist on my system. This means that no matter what I do, I can't open, view, or download the document.

Unfortunately, this practice of making the browser open PDF files the way it doesn't want to open them is common among banks and financial institutions. It crippled my attempts to file income taxes online, and also to sign promissary notes for my federal Stafford loans.

Acrobat has been completely uninstalled. Is there any way to manually fix whatever it did to all of my browsers?

[Trotter]

Have you tried using Foxit Reader yet? Give it a shot and see if it works.

[carnageX]

Originally Posted by Trotter

Have you tried using Foxit Reader yet? Give it a shot and see if it works.

Middle paragraph, first line =P.

Anyway... Have you tried reinstalling your browsers? Could be one thing you could try (if you haven't already).

[Cunjo]

Originally Posted by carnageX

Middle paragraph, first line =P.

Anyway... Have you tried reinstalling your browsers? Could be one thing you could try (if you haven't already).

I installed Acrobat so long ago that it's likely I've reinstalled Firefox since then. I don't want to do it again to be sure unless I absolutely have to, because of all the plugins, settings, and saved form/password data I would lose if I did that.

As for IE7, it can't be uninstalled or reinstalled. I've tried that once before on this computer... it came packaged with the OS on the install disk, and apparently can't be removed.

[EricB]

uh.. uh.. um.. adobe reader?

[Cunjo]

Originally Posted by EricB

uh.. uh.. um.. adobe reader?

Tried that. It's still stuck looking for Adobe Acrobat.

[superdave1984]

Do you have PDF's associated with another app?

[Cunjo]

Originally Posted by superdave1984

Do you have PDF's associated with another app?

They're associated correctly with FoxIt Reader. The filetype associations work fine in Windows, but trying to open a PDF in any browser still tries to open it in Acrobat, despite the browsers being set to open with the Windows default.

[EricB]

go to folder option and delete the pdf extension. then recreate it and associate it with adobe reader

[Trotter]

Woops, my bad. The old eyes ain't what they used to be.