Wez Furlong

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I am Wez Furlong, Director of Engineering at Message Systems. My team is responsible for the fastest MTA on Earth.

I'm also a PHP Core developer and OpenSource contributor, residing in Maryland with Juliette, Xander and Lily. (read more)

Adobe Acrobat Reader 6
27th September 2003 @ 17:48 EDT

I happened to reinstall my "desktop" machine with Windows Server 2003 the other day so that I could do some performance tests under IIS 6. I'm also in the process of getting a 2Mbps ADSL line installed, and my ISP emailed a couple of PDF's containing the IP address assignments. I needed to be able to open these things, and I couldn't find the Adobe Acrobat Reader 5.1 installer I downloaded last time around. Adobe are offering 6 right now so I downloaded and installed it.

It looks nice, with some photoshop'd graphic on the splash screen and more winxp-style graphics. It also has an extremely annoying little advertisement on the toolbar that sits there rotating between slides that talk about how good Acrobat is. I wasn't too pleased with this, and after some digging around discovered that there was no way to turn the bloody thing off.

Well, I thought that I could probably put up with it. So, having finished working with the PDF's, I closed the reader and deleted the shortcut icon from the desktop (I don't like crap there, especially now that windows nags you about unused desktop icons). Then I noticed this "PrintMe" internet printing thingy on my start menu. I deleted it, because I don't like crap there either, and certainly don't need to print over the internet.

A few days go by and I need to take another look at those PDF's. When done, I closed the reader, and guess what? The icon is back on the desktop. Hmmmm. Not only that, but that damned PrintMe thing is back again too. Now I'm actually motivated enough to dig around in the reader install dir - I find the PrintMe plugin and move it to a handy empty folder provided by adobe for the purpose of storing plugins you don't want. Nice. Well, guess what? Regardless of whether the plugin is loaded or not, it puts that stupid PrintMe thing back on the start menu. I can't find a way to kill that bloody desktop icon either.

Well, I've decided to live without this version of the reader - it's too damned annoying to use, so I've uninstalled it. I found the 5.1 installer just now, so I think I'll stick with that :-/ Well done Adbobe </sarcastic_clap>

by Wez Furlong in .
5 Comments | Permalink
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16th November 2003 @ 06:46 EDT

?

by Alireza in .
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9th December 2003 @ 17:56 EDT

I just mark the folder hidden, so it doesn't show up on the Start Menu.

by Dojo in .
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11th December 2003 @ 10:22 EDT

i want acrobat reader

by duaa in .
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15th December 2003 @ 09:00 EDT

I install an app, then create a copy of the app folder in the desktop and finally uninstall the app. Then, I create the link between a file extension (like pdf) and the exe of the app that opens that file (like acroreader.exe). It works a lot of times. I use Acrobat in that way.

by in .
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21st January 2004 @ 08:45 EDT

There is a way to turn the bloody adverts off, and how delightful it was to find it.

Edit->Preferences->Startup-> Uncheck "Show messages and automatically update".

See http://www.planetpdf.com/mainpage.asp?webpageid=3067

by Ben in .
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