This came from FurryGoat who got it from Sanjay’s Coding Tips who found it at Darrell Norton’s blog. It’s a short list of things to do to speed up the launching of Adobe’s Reader – I’m posting them here to remind myself what to change after my next reformat or machine upgrade…
It is all the plug-ins that are enabled by default slowing Acrobat reader down. After removing all but 3, it loads pretty much instantly.
- Here’s how to do it:
- Go to C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 6.0\Reader (replace the C if you installed on another drive, like I did).
- Create a new folder called plug_ins_disabled.
- Move all files from the plug_ins folder to the plug_ins_disabled folder except EWH32.api, printme.api, and search.api. There should only be these 3 files in the plug_ins folder.
- You’re done.
Enjoy.
you’re the man.
thnx for your help
my adobe files are super fast now when loading
Sam
Actually, I think credit for this one goes to Steve at FurryGoat.com, but thanks!
Randy:
I was writing a Web Browser App to view several formats and the major complaint was the slow start ups with Acrobat. Everyone here at my little company are grateful. Once Again – Thank you so much.
Dregischan
No worries – glad I could help!
You and the Goat who is furry are awesome!
What a relief! I had built a Web Application that generates many PDF reports, and then Acrobat Reader became so slow (on some machines, not necessarily the old, slow ones). I was afraid I had to rebuilt the report generator …
By the way, “move all files” means “move all files and folders” (leaving the folders may get you error messages).
Oops, yeah – forgot some of the filters were tucked away in folders!
Finally have 6.0 acting civilized! Thanks for the suggestion.
WOW fantastic super quick Adobe, thank you. I use a lot of sheet music in pdf and it bored me rigid having to wait so long each time. Brilliant.
Excellent tip! Thanks so much. Now, why doesn’t Adobe create an installation option to do this at the get go?
This information is very old but I adapted it slightly for the newer version:
1. go to “C:\Program Files\Adobe\Reader 9.0\Reader”
2. rename “plug_ins3d” to something else such as “plug_ins3d_disabled”
now it should start up instantly. the normal plugins in the other folder made zero difference to the startup for me, it was only those 3D ones slowing everything down.
The info is outdated. Here’s a better list of plugins you might want to keep:
AcroForm/
AcroForm.api (form fill support)
EScript.api (form fill support)
IA32.api (internet access support)
Search.api (search support)
Search5.api (search support)
SendMail.api (internet access support)
weblink.api (internet access support)
Also as mentioned above, disable all 3d plugins (plug_ins3d).
Thanks much for the update info and files list!
Worked great. Thanks!
Here is some additions to this procedure (that I noticed)…
– Renamed (added) “_disabled” to the “plug_ins” and “plug_ins3d” folders.
– Recreated empty folders “plug_ins” and “plug_ins3d” and copied the above-mentioned files to them.
– Opened Reader directly from its shortcut which kicked off a quick repair install and it replaced the following folders and their contents:
In …\plug_ins\
“Annotations”
“Multimedia”
“VDKHome”
In …\plug_ins3d\
“prc”
Hope this helps.
THANKS GUYS..
I was having issues with version X. Tried removing a few till eventually found the ones that were causing the most problems. THANKS!
It now loads and doesn’t freeze.
I agree with Brent. How about a “light install”