Stop Edge from taking control of PDF's permanently!!!

Anonymous
2021-01-20T05:56:56+00:00

I am very frustrated with Microsoft Edge continuously hijacking PDFs.  I run Adobe Acrobat and need to have the tools.  I have tried the standard ways of setting Adobe as the default program for PDFs - through Control Panel, through Properties of the file, through Open with.  None of these work for even an hour.

I have also tried a couple of hacks through Regedit that seem to work for others but not for me.

I am at the stage that if i could I would uninstall Edge.

So, how can I permanently set Adobe as the default program for PDFs?

Microsoft Edge | Read PDFs | Windows 10

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  1. Anonymous
    2021-02-08T00:13:18+00:00

    A more specific analysis of the events happening.

    Thanks for going to the trouble of documenting this. What you show is exactly what I expected to be happening, as it will with any application that tries to overturn the user choice. At least you are able to prevent the program from doing it; I'm just surprised that Adobe Acrobat doesn't have a similar preference. All the documentation I could find from Adobe seems to concentrate on the reverse procedure: GPOs are available for organizations to force the PDF file association and prevent users from changing it, which is quite the opposite of what Windows tries to do.

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  2. Anonymous
    2021-02-07T22:10:18+00:00

    How to Change the Default PDF Reader in Windows 10 (howtogeek.com)

    Have you tried these steps? It would be also best to contact support.microsoft.com/contactus to see a support agent is able to access your computer and troubleshoot.

    https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=pdf+default+edge+how+to+remove&docid=608039650403552065&mid=15D2B071B1862DFDF3A115D2B071B1862DFDF3A1&view=detail&FORM=VIRE

    Also recommend watching this video and eradng this

    How do I stop Edge from opening PDF files? - Microsoft Community

    Hey Lester, you may press open externaly for pdfs as well

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  3. Anonymous
    2021-02-07T22:00:57+00:00

    I clicked on a PDF 5 minutes ago and it opened in Acrobat.  In the time it has taken me to read the new comments in this forum and untick PDF in ACDSee the Default for PDF has reverted to nothing.I will see what happens going forward ...

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  4. Anonymous
    2021-02-07T21:57:45+00:00

    I would not have thought of this!.  I have unchecked PDF from ACDSee and will let you know how it goes.

    Thank you.

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  5. Anonymous
    2021-02-07T20:21:28+00:00

    A more specific analysis of the events happening.

    "Before" status: Foxit Reader is set as default pdf reader, ACDSee was configured to _not_ associate itself with .pdf files.

    I just opened ACDSee's config dialog and enabled that it should associate itself to pdf files. I started recording events in Process Monitor and then clicked "ok" in that dialog. The following is what happends afterwards, filtered for the Registry path shown.

    1. ACDSee is reading the current system config and presumably checks if it matches its own config - here it reads the default pdf reader as it is configured in Windows,
    2. As it did not match, ACDSee overwrites the config now. Apparently it does not write a new "Hash" value, I _guess_ this is how Windows detects there was an unauthorized change.
    3. (Next I double-clicked a pdf file on my desktop.) Explorer.exe therefore starts to read the registry values related with pdf files.
    4. It tries to read the missing hash.
    5. Apparently it noticed the missing hash, as now it overwrites the default pdf application with Edge.
    6. And writes a matching hash.
      (Afterwards, Edge is fired up and displays the pdf file)

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