Problem: When my boss started up his computer and/or clicked on a PDF file, he would have multiple PDF windows open.  It was almost like his computer was opening every PDF he had opened before.

Fix: Run disk cleanup in windows.  I’m told that on a mac, you should remove (and backup) a file called com.adobe.acrobat.90.sh.plist from the preverences folder.

 

 

For the windows solution:

  1. Open the disk cleanup tool by going to Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools -> Disk Cleanup
  2. Choose “Files from all users on this computer”
  3. Click Continue (if you have user access controls enabled – probably)
  4. Choose the C: drive and wait for it to finish
  5. Leave the default checked boxes (although you could try checking everything) – BE AWARE that this step will delete stuff.  Make sure you didn’t want anything its going to delete.
  6. Click OK
  7. Click Delete Files (if you’re sure) and wait for it to finish.
  8. Try to open a PDF file.

What Happened: I’m not sure.  However, I suspect there was a temporary file or command line argument that should have been deleted, but got left alone.  Every time adobe acrobat (or adobe reader) started, it was fed that information and told to open those files.  This is normally useful, as when you click on a file, that filename is provided to acrobat or reader.  However, if the system doesn’t forget that filename, but instead adds to it – you can end up with multiple files opening.  I don’t know where those temporary files reside.  However, a disk cleanup seems to wipe them out.

Hope that helps,

–Ben

Disk Cleanup Page, Adobe Forum on a Similar Mac Problem, Techarena Forum (just note that deleting the recent file list didn’t fix it for me)

 

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