Since a while, whenever I want to open a pdf file, some box pops up asking me whether or not I want to upgrade from my current 7.0.8 to 8.0.0.456 version.

If I click yes, then a lengthy download starts, some installation routine comes up and then it says file exists. I tell the installer to save somewhere else, it continues the download and finally the istallation aborts.

Tried to uninstall Adobe Reader, but it says that some patch package cannot be opened.

I have that Google Updater installed. Can this be part of the problem? Any idea how to fix that?

If you like Adobe this will not be of help but I find Foxit much faster and prefer it over Adobe Reader. Have been using for about a year now and have found no issues with it.

Adobe acknowledges the uninstall problem and gives detailed uninstall instructions:

http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/knowledgebase...x.cfm?id=327675

Disabling that annoying update involves going to Help and clicking Check for updates. On the box that pops up click preferences and uncheck the Automatically check for updates box.

Thanks a lot, one step ahead.

First off, I was very surprised finding a 6.0 and a 7.0 installation. Why did the 7.0 Update not delete the 6.0....?

Anyways, I was able to delete all files manually, except for the ActiveX folder. Why Adobe Reader needs ActiveX is beyond my understanding anyways.

The instructions deleting the ActiveX files manually in the DOS prompt didn't work, as DOS is not able to handle a path name with <space>...

Will try out Foxit now, bye bye Adobe!

as DOS is not able to handle a path name with <space>...

Put the path name in quote marks and it can. Example > cd "This is a test"

Thanks for bringing Foxit into my life, I never knew how fast pdfs can open!

That's it also for the google updater - will get rid of it just after this post.

cheers

raro

Thanks for that reference to Foxit.

Acrobat is getting too big for its boots.

I like the ability of Open Office to create .pdf documents.

I'm using Foxit now for a couple of days in the office and it is indeed great! For the first time I was able to edit (i.e. delete pages) out of pdf files, I never figured how to do that with Adobe.

Open Office: I am using it for two years already and indeed, its ability to create pdfs without any additional software is very comfortable. Only falw I found so far is that OO cannot make text boxes in documents like MS Word does. Apart from that, no drawback towards MS Office. I am still using Outlook, though, as I haven't found any open source replacement yet. It is the combination of e-mail client, calendar and the reminder function that makes it so unique. If someone has a recommendation, please let me know!

If you need to create PDF's there's also the free Cutepdf writer.

http://www.cutepdf.com