File association icon missing

[Saga]

Hi all,

I have a laptop, Win XP, SP2, IE7. I installed Acrobat Reader 8.1.2. After experiencing
some odd behavior (will open new post if I can't resolve) I uninstalled Acrobat Reader.
After some tweaking and after I was -fairly- convinced that all was well I reinstalled
Acrobat Reader; however, none of my PDF files show the Acrobat logo icon next to
them, instead, the generic Windows file icon is present. Acrobat Reader will open
if I double click the PDF file.

I opened My Computer and proceeded to Tools/Folder options/Filetypes, selected
the PDF file type, clicked the Advanced Button, followed up by clicking the Change
Icon Button, navigated to where the AcroRd32.exe file was located, clicked Ok on
various dialogs to get back to the main My Computer window.

I then closed the My Computer window, reopened it, navigated to a folder where I have
PDF files and found that the generic icon remains. I rebooted the laptop, but that did
not help any. Is there something else that I am missing? Thanks!

Saga
--

 

[Tom B.]

This isn't actually a solution but may lead to one.

Go into regedit and navigate to the following folder:

HKey_Classes_Root\.pdf

Is there a key called Content Type with a value of application/pdf ?

If so, go back to the top of the list (click on My Computer within Regedit)
and do a find for application/pdf.

Did you find a folder for application/pdf? There should be a key named
CLSID. Open the key and copy the content (it'll be some long number looking
something like this: {AC76BA86-7AD7-1033-7B44-A81200000003}).

Go back to the top of the list in Regedit and do a search for that number.
You should be able to find a folder called 'installer' under
HKEY_Local_Machine\Software\Adobe\Acrobat Reader\(version number, 8.1 or
something).

If something is not right above then maybe one of those keys need to be added.

Additionally, go back to Windows Explorer\Tools\Folder Options\File Types,
highlight PDF, click on Advanced. The top field should say:

Adobe Acrobat Document

In the second field there should be Open. Highlight it and click Edit.
Check the following fields:

Action: Open
Application used to perform....: (Should be something like this including
the quotes): "C:\Program Files\Adobe\Reader 8.0\Reader\AcroRd32.exe" "%1"

Use DDE should be checked

Application: AcroRd32
Topic: System

Hope that leads to a solution.

 

[Big Al]

Hi all,

I have a laptop, Win XP, SP2, IE7. I installed Acrobat Reader 8.1.2. After experiencing
some odd behavior (will open new post if I can't resolve) I uninstalled Acrobat Reader.
After some tweaking and after I was -fairly- convinced that all was well I reinstalled
Acrobat Reader; however, none of my PDF files show the Acrobat logo icon next to
them, instead, the generic Windows file icon is present. Acrobat Reader will open
if I double click the PDF file.

I opened My Computer and proceeded to Tools/Folder options/Filetypes, selected
the PDF file type, clicked the Advanced Button, followed up by clicking the Change
Icon Button, navigated to where the AcroRd32.exe file was located, clicked Ok on
various dialogs to get back to the main My Computer window.

I then closed the My Computer window, reopened it, navigated to a folder where I have
PDF files and found that the generic icon remains. I rebooted the laptop, but that did
not help any. Is there something else that I am missing? Thanks!

Saga

Another suggestion is to go into file types like you did but rather than
editing or trying to associate it yourself, just delete the .pdf
association. Now the next time you double click a PDF it will tell
you it does not know how to open it and you can browse and pick the
right program. Usually works for me.

Of course I'm not sure how much 'tweaking' you've done and how that
would effect the normal windows user tools.

 

[Saga]

Thank you both. I will try what you recommend.

Saga