Job Discussion Forums

dmb · Joined: 12 Feb 2003 Posts: 8397

I'm having problems opening PDF files. This only happened a few days ago. I thought it was something temporary but I successfully opened them at work. When I open them a blank screen comes up with a small multi coloured square in the top left hand corner. Any ideas why I cant open them and even better, any ideas how I can disable whatever it is that prevents them from being opened.

nolefan · Joined: 14 Jan 2004 Posts: 1458 Location: on the run

need more information about your system before I can give you any valuable advice.

One thing that seems to work (sometimes) is uninstalling acrobat reader (it might be corrupted or just an old version) and installing a fresh copy that you just downloaded from adobe's website.

dmb · Joined: 12 Feb 2003 Posts: 8397

I updated acrobat earlier today. So it isn't that. Someone told me earlier it might be because of a toolbar. I'm a bit of a technophobe so I don't know how true this is. When things don't work the way they are supposed to computers really annoy me. Evil or Very Mad

shmooj · Joined: 11 Sep 2003 Posts: 1758 Location: Seoul, ROK

dmb · Joined: 12 Feb 2003 Posts: 8397

Thanks shmooj. A friend of a friend came round and sorted it out. However, I am interested in discovering what the problem was. I was/am running adaware. Is this a good or bad thing? What exactly does it do?
Also I use Norton.

shmooj · Joined: 11 Sep 2003 Posts: 1758 Location: Seoul, ROK

Sheep-Goats · Joined: 16 Apr 2004 Posts: 527

Adaware is one of many programs that deals with "spyware," software that you don't want installed, that probably installed itself, and that collects and distributes information about you to someone else.

Spyware isn't geared to cause any problems with Adobe Acrobat as there's not much valuable info that can be gleaned that way. Your problem with Acrobat is not related to adaware, dmb.

Software isn't like the engine of a car -- sometimes parts change or get lost and the program just stops working, sometimes because the program itself is poorly designed, somtimes from a change you made to your system, sometimes because of unintentional interference from other software you installed (recently), sometimes from malicious programs like spyware or viruses. Or a combination of any of those. There's no sure way to know how that problem was caused aside from doing a pretty detailed analysis -- my advice to you would have been to simply re-install Acrobat and hope for the best.