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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?
Opening and reading PDF files in Microsoft Edge on Windows 10
Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.
Well, I have the same software on my laptop and on my PC. Everything works fine on my laptop, but the issue came up with my PC after I finally upgraded my Adobe.
So, it was a logical conclusion (in my head anyway).
Three weeks and no problems at all.
Hi Lester,
I have been dealing with the exact same nonsense for the last 2 years and Microsoft has done absolutely nothing to solve. I have wasted hours on the phone and over 20 e-mails with MS support (service request number is 1495470132) with zero remedies. I had (3) freshly installed Windows 10 Home machines that both continuously change the default .pdf setting from Adobe to Edge. The last request from Microsoft was to reload the machinea which was not an option for us because we did not have (2) days to waste reloading.
Well, I went one step further and just purchased a new Window 10 Pro machine with AMD 7 2 weeks ago with a fresh copy of Windows 10 Pro and within 7 days Windows set the .pdf default back to Edge from Adobe Pro and FoxitPDF. We have also tried all of the recommendation listed in this post plus many more and none of them work. There are 100's if not 1000's of complaints online of both retail and commercial users having the same exact issues dating all the way back to 2015. This bug has existed since the beginning of Windows 10 and Microsoft has refuses to fix it.
Greg, looking forward to hearing your feedback or recommendations? Lester, have you found any fixes on your end?
Thanks,
-Todd
Hi Todd
I feel for you. I am lucky in that a full reformat (Win 10 Pro) solved the problem. I found no comfort or solutions from either Microsoft or Adobe. I would have thought that it is in their best interests to solve this as there are alternatives to both Windows and Adobe.
I wish you all the luck and maybe Windows 11 will be more reasonable.
Cheers
Lester
I have battled the same problem for about 2 years. Sometimes resetting the default in settings lasted months, and sometimes it would revert several times in one day. The shortest time I had Adobe as my default was 7 minutes before it switched back. I have Adobe Creative Cloud, and prefer using Chrome for my browser, so I had no need for Edge at all. Funny enough, at the top of this page Edge is trying to get me to switch to Edge as my default browser - persistent sucker.
In frustration, I turned to my company's IT department. They somehow got Edge uninstalled. I wish I knew how they did this so I could share the secret with all of you.
It has been a blissful and quiet 4 months since that was done... until this morning. When I opened a document, Adobe had a big pop-up asking if I wanted to make Adobe my default PDF reader. I went right to settings, and sure enough, Microsoft Edge was there as my PDF default program. Only it was just the words "Microsoft Edge" and a blank blue box, no Edge logo. Extra persistent sucker.
So even thought the program is no longer on my computer, Microsoft is still trying to push me to Edge. I'm so frustrated. The claim that certain functions of the computer require Edge to run is false, since I've been running for months without Edge and without problems. My Adobe is up to date and I use it all day, every day. Why is this still happening?
Hi SharonBVA.
That's a bummer. I managed to get Edge uninstalled but continued to have the same problem with Micrsoft removing Adobe's association with PDFs. In this case Microsoft associated PDFs with nothing.
The only way I found to fix it was a full reformat. I haven't had the problem since.
I hope you find a way.