Thanks Leo,

Did the trick on my Windows 7 64bit machine.

@Adobe: you should be ashamed to let this go on for such a long time

@Leo: I donated something, but an additional message seems no option. Luckily the header of the payment says: "PDF 64-bit fixes", so your friend should know enough!

Rob

Hey guys,

     It's interesting how this problem didn't exist for me until I started using Microsoft Office 2010 Professional Beta. When opening a PDF attachment in Outlook 2010, I get the error message "PDF Handler for Vista." I'm no longer using Vista, but Windows 7. All the Acrobat 9.3x intergration worked fine in Office 2007 prior to ungrading. For kicks I down graded to my Office 2007 Suite and the PDF Handler for Vista worked fine in Windows 7, and all the intergration with the Office Suite too. Below is a screen shot of Outlook 2010's Trust Center/Attachment Handling/Attachment and Document Previewers... window only confirms PDF Preview Handler for Vista is infact installed. Everytime I go to Outlook Options/Add-Ins PDFMOutlook.dll click /Go to activate this item it returns inactive after closing the program to accept changes. If anyone has any ideas, I'm all ears.

Thanks,

Michael

Well,

Here I am answering my own post... After posting, I decided to check out all the other posts as well. Wouldn't you know there's a fix, but not from Adobe. http://www.pretentiousname.com/adobe_pdf_x64_fix/ My PDF Preview Handler for Vista now works with Outlook 2010 using Windows 7 64bit.

thanks

Michael

mschaffer wrote:

 

Maybe Steve Jobs isn't too far off the mark with his "Adobe is lazy" statement.

For all that I've said about Adobe regarding this PDF issue (and others), I'd choose them over Apple any day. Apple's behaviour when given power over a popular platform is unforgivable -- e.g. arbitrarily banning all programming languages & tools except their own -- makes me side with Adobe on that fight.

For all that's wrong with Adobe in the last few years, I do still *choose* to use several of their software packages. The only Apple code I ever use is what's forced upon me to use their hardware. (Even then, since reinstalling with Windows 7, I've refused to install iTunes on my machine. I'll live with a stale iPod for a while and install it in a virtual machine when the time comes.)

I mean, if we're going to ban inefficient code that's the product of a poor cross-platform porting framework and results in an awful app, Apple should have the decency to ban their own Windows port of iTunes (or let me choose to use other software with their devices).

Anyway, glad the Adobe Reader fixes are working for everyone!

The good news is that Adobe finally fixed the preview handler in the Adobe Reader 9.3.2 installer.

The bad news is that:

• They still haven't fixed PDF thumbnails for 64-bit (so you still need my fix for those). Maybe Adobe will fix that themselves in 2011? :-)
  
• If you download the Adobe Reader installer you get 9.3.0. You have to run the update checker after installing it in order to get the latest version with the 64-bit preview handler fix and several vital security updates. (Seriously, Adobe, are you so lazy that you can't be bothered to copy the latest installer to your website? Even when the version on there contains serious security flaws which are being exploited in the wild? What the hell?)
• Adobe didn't bother to mention this in their change log (let alone credit me for finding it) so it was only noticed by accident. Shows how much they cared about this issue, but at least they fixed it in the end, albeit six months after I told them how to fix it and several years after the initial complaints. Credit goes to Alex Bantzhaff for noticing the fix in 9.3.2 and letting me know.

Other good news is that Office 2010 RTM came out and no longer requires the extra registry changes which the Office 2010 beta needed.

That's some progress at least. Still a long way to go, though, Adobe.

Without installing my thumbnail fix, 32-bit apps are still able to generate thumbnails which Windows then caches and provides for 64-bit apps if they ask for thumbnails for the same files. (But 64-bit apps still cannot generate fresh thumbnails for other files without installing my fix (or an alternative PDF tool that supports 64-bit).)  So if you see thumbnails for some PDF files and haven't installed any fix or alternative tool, it's probably just because a 32-bit app cached a thumbnail for those files in the past.

By the way, it turns out Adobe didn't quite get the preview handler fix right in the 9.3.2 installer: If you upgraded from Vista to Windows 7 you'll probably still need to run my preview handler fix (but only once, at least if you grab the latest version from my website).

truemaam wrote:

 

 

I am not so sure about the thumbnail preview fix though -- will this work for me or will it only work for Adobe Reader?

I'm not sure as I don't have Adobe Acrobat to test with. Give it a try and see what happens. If it doesn't work you can uninstall it afterwards.

I just recently upgraded to Office 2010 Pro and haven't had a problem since. But that fix was great! I did use it... great work!

Dear Adobe,

PDF Preview option not working in MyComputer or Windows Explorer.

Only option is a PDF symbol or unavailable

Adobe Acrobat 9 on Win 7 64 bit

Please advise fix ASAP

Just installed Reader 9.4.1 and shows a preview in the preview pane now. At first it was showing thumbnails in my windows folders, (Win7 64b) but now, they disappeard. Funky stuff

9.4.1 is the version I installed this mornin'

Hello!  I have a new computer with Windows 7 & Outlook 2010, and I just installed the new Acrobat X + Reader X.  The Preview Handler has never worked in Outlook 2010, and still doesn't with X.

I used the utility (before and after installing X) to see if it would fix the problem but even though it said the registry was corrected, the Preview Handler still doesn't work in Outlook, nor does the Thumbnail feature work in explorer.

I've re-started, re-booted, and everything else I can think of, and I'm still getting "this file cannot be previewed because of an error with the following previewer: PDF Preview Handler". Do you have suggestions on how to fix this? I am totally willing to donate!

Thank you so much,

Ella

Brilliant   It worked, thank you.

Hi

Cannot get it to work for me ??

Windows 7 Office 2010 Adobe 7.1.4

Tried with Adobe Reader 10.0.1 installed but no luck so deinstalled.

Tried Repair of Office 2010. No luck.

Stumped.

Regards

Richard

Hey everyone!  I'm still not getting it to work properly, even after installing Leo's fix.  I'm running Win 7 and access all my files off of a network drive (maybe that's the problem?).

Because I've installed the fix, it is showing thumbnails, but the thumbnails I'm seeing are often for the next, most recent file in the folder.  Sometimes the thumbnails are accurate and sometimes not - there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to it.

I've tried everything I can think of.  Repaired installations on everything, installed and uninstalled it all, even manually reset the registry so the fix could fix it all over again.

Thoughts, anyone???

I got my thumbnails visual by using 32-bit explorerer on a 64-bit machine (Vista). But all of a sudden this doesn't work anymore. Could this be caused by an update of Microsoft or Adobe? ('pretentious' didn't work for me but maybe that's because I didn't cleared my thumbnail cache)