I know the worst thing in the world is to receive a "book" describing
someone's PC trouble. However, I'm baffled as to the behavior of my Windows
XP Pro OS and I've tried and tried to understand it with no results, so far.
I'll try to be as brief as possible.

I went to upgrade my Adobe Reader 6 to Reader 7 on my Dell (P3) laptop and
now XP seems to have subordinated control to Reader 7.

Here's what happens: Whenever I try to run an application, whether from the
start menu, the quicklaunch bar or windows explorer or even the desktop,
Reader 7 is launched and then Reader 7 tries to open the application I
clicked on and then complains that it can't open it (of course). At this
point, I cannot proceed. The only things I can seem to manage to run are a
few non-application items on the start menu such as the search feature and
control panel (but when I try to launch an item on the control panel window,
then the same behavior occurs where Reader 7 is launched.

However, when I right click on an item, say Windows Explorer and then choose
"Open" from the pop up window, then, Windows Explorer opens fine. But,
sometimes this does not work, and I've noticed that if the pop up window
contains "Open" on the first line and is bolded, then the bad behavior
returns.

Things I've tried:

I tried uninstalling Reader 7 but the problem was that when I went to
control panel and tried to run uninstall, Reader 7 was launched instead. I'd
uninstall it if I could.

However, here is another behavior. I went and temporarily changed the
filename of the Reader 7 executable (acroread32.exe) so it wouldn't run. Now,
whenever I try to run any application, a window pops up asking me to select
an application to run the application file I've selected. Seems like windows
is not recognizing a .exe as an executable.

Soooo... I went and did an XP Repair Install (but not a repair using the
Recovery Console). This, to my amazement, did not fix the problem. XP is
still trying to open Reader 7, no matter what program I try to run.

I tried to initiate a clean install of XP but the install program tries to
run Reader 7 when I try to begin the install. (ARGUH!)

Oh, yes, I also did the registry repair thing for recognizing .exe files.
Didn't fix anything.

Have anyone seen this problem before and have any idea how to fix it?

--
Jim H.

See www.dougknox.com, Win XP Fixes, File Assocation Fixes, EXE File
Association Fix.

If your EXE file associations are corrupted, it can be difficult to open
REGEDIT, or to even import REG files. To work around this, press
CTRL-ALT-DEL and open Task Manager. Once there, click File, then hold down
the CTRL key and click New Task (Run). This will open a Command Prompt
window. Enter REGEDIT.EXE and press Enter.

--
Doug Knox, MS-MVP Windows Media Center\Windows Powered Smart
Display\Security
Win 95/98/Me/XP Tweaks and Fixes
http://www.dougknox.com
--------------------------------
Per user Group Policy Restrictions for XP Home and XP Pro
http://www.dougknox.com/xp/utils/xp_securityconsole.htm
--------------------------------
Please reply only to the newsgroup so all may benefit.
Unsolicited e-mail is not answered.

"Jim H." <JimH@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:3F2B6B21-74DB-48DA-A425-6C5D92F24675@microsoft.com...
>I know the worst thing in the world is to receive a "book" describing
> someone's PC trouble. However, I'm baffled as to the behavior of my
> Windows
> XP Pro OS and I've tried and tried to understand it with no results, so
> far.
> I'll try to be as brief as possible.
>
> I went to upgrade my Adobe Reader 6 to Reader 7 on my Dell (P3) laptop and
> now XP seems to have subordinated control to Reader 7.
>
> Here's what happens: Whenever I try to run an application, whether from
> the
> start menu, the quicklaunch bar or windows explorer or even the desktop,
> Reader 7 is launched and then Reader 7 tries to open the application I
> clicked on and then complains that it can't open it (of course). At this
> point, I cannot proceed. The only things I can seem to manage to run are a
> few non-application items on the start menu such as the search feature and
> control panel (but when I try to launch an item on the control panel
> window,
> then the same behavior occurs where Reader 7 is launched.
>
> However, when I right click on an item, say Windows Explorer and then
> choose
> "Open" from the pop up window, then, Windows Explorer opens fine. But,
> sometimes this does not work, and I've noticed that if the pop up window
> contains "Open" on the first line and is bolded, then the bad behavior
> returns.
>
> Things I've tried:
>
> I tried uninstalling Reader 7 but the problem was that when I went to
> control panel and tried to run uninstall, Reader 7 was launched instead.
> I'd
> uninstall it if I could.
>
> However, here is another behavior. I went and temporarily changed the
> filename of the Reader 7 executable (acroread32.exe) so it wouldn't run.
> Now,
> whenever I try to run any application, a window pops up asking me to
> select
> an application to run the application file I've selected. Seems like
> windows
> is not recognizing a .exe as an executable.
>
> Soooo... I went and did an XP Repair Install (but not a repair using the
> Recovery Console). This, to my amazement, did not fix the problem. XP is
> still trying to open Reader 7, no matter what program I try to run.
>
> I tried to initiate a clean install of XP but the install program tries to
> run Reader 7 when I try to begin the install. (ARGUH!)
>
> Oh, yes, I also did the registry repair thing for recognizing .exe files.
> Didn't fix anything.
>
> Have anyone seen this problem before and have any idea how to fix it?
>
> --
> Jim H.

Doug, as I mentioned in my original post, I've already done the .exe file
association fix. It doesn't solve the problem.
--
Jim H.


"Doug Knox - [MS-MVP]" wrote:

> See www.dougknox.com, Win XP Fixes, File Assocation Fixes, EXE File
> Association Fix.
>
> If your EXE file associations are corrupted, it can be difficult to open
> REGEDIT, or to even import REG files. To work around this, press
> CTRL-ALT-DEL and open Task Manager. Once there, click File, then hold down
> the CTRL key and click New Task (Run). This will open a Command Prompt
> window. Enter REGEDIT.EXE and press Enter.
>
> --
> Doug Knox, MS-MVP Windows Media Center\Windows Powered Smart
> Display\Security
> Win 95/98/Me/XP Tweaks and Fixes
> http://www.dougknox.com
> --------------------------------
> Per user Group Policy Restrictions for XP Home and XP Pro
> http://www.dougknox.com/xp/utils/xp_securityconsole.htm
> --------------------------------
> Please reply only to the newsgroup so all may benefit.
> Unsolicited e-mail is not answered.
>
> "Jim H." <JimH@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:3F2B6B21-74DB-48DA-A425-6C5D92F24675@microsoft.com...
> >I know the worst thing in the world is to receive a "book" describing
> > someone's PC trouble. However, I'm baffled as to the behavior of my
> > Windows
> > XP Pro OS and I've tried and tried to understand it with no results, so
> > far.
> > I'll try to be as brief as possible.
> >
> > I went to upgrade my Adobe Reader 6 to Reader 7 on my Dell (P3) laptop and
> > now XP seems to have subordinated control to Reader 7.
> >
> > Here's what happens: Whenever I try to run an application, whether from
> > the
> > start menu, the quicklaunch bar or windows explorer or even the desktop,
> > Reader 7 is launched and then Reader 7 tries to open the application I
> > clicked on and then complains that it can't open it (of course). At this
> > point, I cannot proceed. The only things I can seem to manage to run are a
> > few non-application items on the start menu such as the search feature and
> > control panel (but when I try to launch an item on the control panel
> > window,
> > then the same behavior occurs where Reader 7 is launched.
> >
> > However, when I right click on an item, say Windows Explorer and then
> > choose
> > "Open" from the pop up window, then, Windows Explorer opens fine. But,
> > sometimes this does not work, and I've noticed that if the pop up window
> > contains "Open" on the first line and is bolded, then the bad behavior
> > returns.
> >
> > Things I've tried:
> >
> > I tried uninstalling Reader 7 but the problem was that when I went to
> > control panel and tried to run uninstall, Reader 7 was launched instead.
> > I'd
> > uninstall it if I could.
> >
> > However, here is another behavior. I went and temporarily changed the
> > filename of the Reader 7 executable (acroread32.exe) so it wouldn't run.
> > Now,
> > whenever I try to run any application, a window pops up asking me to
> > select
> > an application to run the application file I've selected. Seems like
> > windows
> > is not recognizing a .exe as an executable.
> >
> > Soooo... I went and did an XP Repair Install (but not a repair using the
> > Recovery Console). This, to my amazement, did not fix the problem. XP is
> > still trying to open Reader 7, no matter what program I try to run.
> >
> > I tried to initiate a clean install of XP but the install program tries to
> > run Reader 7 when I try to begin the install. (ARGUH!)
> >
> > Oh, yes, I also did the registry repair thing for recognizing .exe files.
> > Didn't fix anything.
> >
> > Have anyone seen this problem before and have any idea how to fix it?
> >
> > --
> > Jim H.
>
>