Microsoft Edge keeps making itself the default PDF viewer instead of acrobat

Hello mewise

Im Juliet and Im happy to help you :)

I understand that you are having trouble with Microsoft Edge constantly becoming the default PDF viewer instead of Adobe Acrobat. This can be a frustrating issue, but there are a few steps you can take to try and resolve it.

1. Open Adobe Acrobat and go to Edit > Preferences > General. Under the section labeled "Basic Tools," select "Set as Default PDF Handler."
2. Go to Windows Settings > Apps > Default Apps. Under the "Choose default apps" section, locate the entry for Microsoft Edge and click on it. Select "Choose defaults for this program" and then uncheck the box next to "PDF."
3. If the above steps do not work, you can try resetting your default apps to the Windows default. Go to Windows Settings > Apps > Default Apps, and click "Reset" under "Reset to the Microsoft recommended defaults."

I hope this helps! Let me know what happens :)

I spent about an hour fighting this.

Telling Windows to "Repair" Edge didn't work for me; it kept reporting that the downloaded file was corrupted.

But I finally found a solution.

Step #1: Kill all Edge processes. I used Process Explorer, but Task Manager will probably also work.

(If you use Task Manager, then while you're in there you should probably also go to the "Startup apps" page and disable the stuff that doesn't need to start on every boot, such as your web browsers [including Edge], Phone Link, Xbox App Services, etc.)

Step #2: Go to Settings -> Apps -> Default apps

and change the default app for .pdf files to whatever you want.

I haven't tested restarting the computer, to see if the setting is retained. But I did start Edge, and it left the setting alone.

THIS SIMPLY DOESNT WORK.

I have tried all the advice about stopping Edge from hijacking PDF files and nothing works. After I set Acrobat to be the default program for PDF files, sometimes, within an hour, Edge has made itself the default browser again.

This is insufferable

We are encountering the same issue where I work, and I have a GPO linked to a defaultassociation.xml file to govern application defaults and Edge still does this after every major update. I have to redefine the default app association for PDF docs, re-export a default app XML file to retain the settings. It will happen again though after the next major update release.... Getting REAL ANNOYING to have a patch override explicitly defined parameters defined by a GPO, following suggested MS best practices........

Microsoft, what use is it to define default associations via GPO if your browser keeps over riding one of the file associations after every major update?

OMG, you angel!!

This works.

1. Go to Add or Remove programs
2. Look up Edge, click Modify, then Repair
3. Then go to default app settings, change PDF to something else (Windows now lets you do that while Edge is reparing)
4. Cancel the Edge repair process
5. The default app for pdf is now changed.

Adding my voice to this problem as well. Trying to build a 2022 RDS Session host and after every login, Edge is taking over PDF file associations. But only for non-admin users.

Well, I seem to have fixed it. Setting the PDF handler, exporting the associations using DISM, and reimporting them with my admin account seemed to fix it for all users on subsequent logins. Edge no longer takes over the association on each login.

Dism.exe /online /Export-DefaultAppAssociations:C:\DefaultAssociations.xml

Dism.exe /online /Import-DefaultAppAssociations:C:\DefaultAssociations.xml

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/ask-the-performance-team/how-to-configure-file-associations-for-it-pros/ba-p/1313151