Some of you have joined my PDF discussions before. Now it’s time again (you don’t have to join, I just have to write this anyway).
As I updated (via Adobe Updater) Adobe Reader 8.0.0 to 8.1.0, plus Language Support, I was told (well, forced) by the installer to reboot (CAVS HIPS disabled all the time). So I did. Then the BSOD quickly came up, and disappeared. Some options to boot came up, I tried “normal” which didn’t work - the system restarted again and the BSOD flashed again. Safe mode was OK, but I wasn’t able to uninstall Adobe Reader from there. Finally I restarted and choosed “last known good setting”, which worked perfectly.
Now I expected Adobe Reader to be back on 8.0.0, but it has actually updated to 8.1.0 now. The language support installation wasn’t finalized, but it took care of itself. Now everything works again, Adobe Reader is up to date and no BSOD comes up.
Of course I can’t tell for 100% sure that this whole thing was because of Adobe, but everything point to that direction. Too bad that there isn’t any good alternative to Adobe Reader. It makes a good job, but I just hate that it goes so deep into Windows, that it is around 200 bloody MB. Actually, I really dislike programs that require ridiculously much space - like ALL Adobe programs (The GIMP can do very much that Photoshop can, but it takes a FRACTION of the space), like Nero, like Symantec products… and I dislike the vast amount of features Adobe Reader has.
Sorry for posting such a negative thing but I’m just… dejected.
+ + :-[ + :-\ + 
= LA
(well, luckily, Adobe Reader works perfect now, after all. But I won’t make a smiley for that, not today)
To check if this BSOD problem could occur again, I reinstalled Adobe Reader completely, this time 8.1.0 directly - not patching an 8.0.0 to 8.1.0. The problem has not come back. But during installation, an installer bug came up again. Really annoying, installers obviously don’t work properly on my XP SP2 system.
https://forums.comodo.com/general_discussion_off_topic_anything_and_everything/letters_are_gone_at_some_buttons_resolved-t10364.0.html
/LA
HI LA
I have had pretty good success with Foxit Reader from Free PDF Reader & Viewer - Online Download | Foxit Software
Try it and let me know what you think.
John
Hi LA
don’t blame your system… or CPF. adobe reader 8.0 (and some previous) has a known problem with its updater (search the adobe site for detials). I can’t recall the details tho had similar problems on XP sp2.
I’ve also got premiere and photoshop elements and they froze when updating thanks to the shared components (from reader). grr. had to uninstall acrobat 7.0 (+ all adobe products) and try again with 8.1. The installer +updater then worked ok tho still some leftover parts of the installer. makes me wonder about paying for software when the free stuff works more reliably
JJasper, thanks for the tip, but no other reader than Adobe’s has the performance I want. I started a thread for this two months ago;
https://forums.comodo.com/general_discussion_off_topic_anything_and_everything/any_suggestions_of_pdf_readers-t8614.0.html
mike.batcheler, ah, good to hear. I’ll take a look at their site.
I’m very close to leave Windows and Adobe behind forever. With Mac OS I would (probably) only miss Comodo’s products, with Linux I would miss both Comodo and Bryce 5.5. (https://forums.comodo.com/general_discussion_off_topic_anything_and_everything/free_3d_modelling_software-t10038.0.html)
/LA