Why can I not change my default .pdf app to anything other than Microsoft Edge?

Anonymous
2024-04-29T11:48:46+00:00

I follow the steps (via Settings) and no change. I try to open Adobe Reader and it will not open on my PC. I see from a search that this is not a new issue and it's frustrating. This feels predatory and proprietary - forcing us to use Microsoft products. I'm thinking of stopping my personal subscription and moving to another option.

Microsoft Edge | Read PDFs | Windows 11

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  1. Anonymous
    2024-05-03T16:13:51+00:00

    I'm not sure if that's what I read in the different options to try but what worked for me was to close Edge, Reboot then go to Task Manager/Details and make sure there were no MSEdge... processes running. I even kill the MSEdge update one just in case. Then went to Default Apps and I was able to change the default for .PDF from Edge to MyPDF program (I use PDF-Xcange Viewer) but it doesn't matter which one you use.

    Cheers.

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  2. Anonymous
    2024-05-03T16:10:23+00:00

    This worked , thank you

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  3. Anonymous
    2024-05-03T15:56:34+00:00

    Yep same here. Very frustrating MS.

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  4. Anonymous
    2024-05-03T15:21:31+00:00

    I have not been able to ever open pdf documents using PDF Reader and Editor ELF program on my Windows laptop. After following the directions below given by several others, it still wouldn't open. So I uninstalled the ELF program and installed the PDF X reader, and now the documents open no problem.

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  5. Anonymous
    2024-05-03T15:04:33+00:00

    Confirmed. I had to kill all instances of Edge to allow me to select the default app to open my PDF files. This better be fixed in a hotfix patch for Edge Quickley. this is affecting a lot of users.

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