hey, hope people can help....

i can't seem read many acrobat documents now. adobe seems to be saying some free trial i had no idea was getting has expired. they now want $450.

i just want the most basic free reader. i don't care about fancy features or making/editing acrobat documents

feels a bit like a virus/scam but it may not be.

i have downloaded the latest free product but it still says my trial has expired and won't let me open the acrobat documents.

i have not yet shut down computer and re-started.

any thoughts?

thanks in advance!!

also, worst case under time pressure, is there a way to read the document without using acrobat??

To the best of my knowledge Adobe Acrobat is still a paid application, and Adobe Reader is free. It sounds like you downloaded a trial of Acrobat. Uninstall that and get Reader and you should be all set.

ok thanks. i think i understand now. hopefully it will work. i didn't realize that acrobat and reader were different. i just thought it was paid (fancy) vs. free.

thanks again

This is a better alternative http://www.foxitsoftware.com/Secure_PDF_Reader/

thanks... my basic attempts to get rid of this "your subscription has expired" have been fruitless.

it feels a little spammy but i'm not really sure.

not sure why you think it's spammy

google pdf reader and you'll see it on the first page

think he's talking about his pop-up warnings. Could be malware, but Adobe's sometimes a little sticky with uninstalls. However I uninstalled 8 of their apps on a Windows machine very recently and don't recall an issue that time.

I had Foxit on someone's recommendation, can't remember if I liked it or not. Got rid of it as Acrobat was part of the Abode Suite I started subscribing to and I need to have it.

Actually I think Foxit worked fine, it was the OpenOffice Word app that sucked terribly. I tried a bunch of replacement freewares for a while, mostly a waste of time.

OpenOffice Word reminds me of WordPerfect... both horrible.

You may want to uninstall Adobe Acrobat via Add/Remove programs. Your PDF's may not be set to open with Adobe Reader by default if you're still getting the error message. To change this, right click the PDF and go to Open With, then click "Choose default program". In the Open With window that pops up, a few Recommended programs will show at the top. If Adobe Reader isn't here, click the black arrow to the right of Other Programs and it should be in that list. Ensure that the "Always use the selected program" checkbox is selected, then click OK.

Also, as aforementioned, FoxIt is a great alternative to Adobe Reader.