[Framers] Acrobat glitches

[Ken Poshedly]

OK Gang,

While not directly a FrameMaker problem, it IS Adobe-related and I don't know how to fix it.

Up until Tuesday of this week, all pdf files that I accessed -- whether they are on my on terminal or online -- automatically opened in Adobe Acrobat 9 Professional (which I legitimately own).

On Tuesday morning, my son emailed me an I-9 form as a pdf file that required electronic completion. (It is from a prospective employer for him and he was not computer-literate enough to handle it.) That file would not open in my Acrobat app, probably because it was created with a much newer version of Acrobat (or similar tool). Instead, I got an Adobe Acrobat error box stating "Invalid enumerated value" faults on several lines.

So I downloaded Adobe Reader DC so that at least I could open the I-9 file. So far, so good. I was then able to electronically complete the form (name and address data). Great. So I closed out Adobe Reader but left it installed.

Later that day while trying to open an online pdf file that I needed to access, I discovered that instead of letting me view the file, my system now downloads the file (into my Downloads folder) where I can open it in my Acrobat 9 Professional application.

This is NOT what I want, I just wanted to VIEW it online. So I figured the new Adobe Reader installation somehow affected things, so I uninstalled Reader. But that didn't help. As a matter of fact, I then began getting a error box when I opened any pdf file in Acrobat telling me that my license had expired and I needed to uninstall and then reinstall Acrobat (or else consult with my IT administrator).

I then uninstalled Acrobat 9, then re-installed it. Well, the expired license error box no longer pops up, but my system still refuses to open online pdf files for me to view but only downloads them (and I can then open them in Acrobat).

I also have FrameMaker 10 installed, but that has NEVER been a problem and it is not part of this mess.

So what gives? What was changed and how can I set things back to the way they were before that danged Reader app was installed and uninstalled so that I can view online pdf files?
-- Ken in Atlanta