If in doubt, run the fix and it will tell you if anything needs to be done. If you had Adobe Reader installed under Vista and later upgraded to Windows 7 then you will probably still need to run the preview handler fix once to clean up a registry value which Adobe set inconsistently between the two OS versions. Unlike the thumbnail fix, described below, the preview handler fix should no longer be needed by most people, since Adobe have finally fixed their installer, but it's still provided in case it helps repair things. The change is described below and a small program which performs the fix is also provided for your convenience.

It turned out the problem could be fixed via a simple registry change. Preview handlers are lightweight components which let you view various file types within programs like Windows Explorer (in Windows Vista and Windows 7), Outlook 2007/2010 and Directory Opus (via my bundled plugin).Īdobe Reader comes with Adobe's PDF preview handler but the installer had a mistake which meant the preview handler did not work on 64-bit systems. Maybe in 2011 Adobe will manage to fix the thumbnails as well until then you can get my fix for them below. Half a year after I published the information, Adobe finally incorporated the preview handler fix (but no thumbnails fix, and they leave the preview handler broken if you upgraded from Vista to Windows 7) into the installer for Adobe Reader 9.3.2 (April 2010). Only the thumbnails fix is still needed, except if you upgraded from Vista to Windows 7, where both fixes may still be needed.

This page contains simple fixes for Adobe's PDF preview handler and thumbnails on 64-bit versions of Windows.īefore I looked into this, people had been complaining about it for over two years with no official response.

Fixing the preview handler by hand or group policy.Fixes for 64-bit Adobe Reader preview handler and thumbnails

Adobe pdf download