Unknown if this an Acrobat Pro bug or Windows 11, but if I hover the cursor over the acrobat pro icon on the task bar, I get a list of documents that are currently open PLUS a list of “dead” documents. These cannot be closed.Showing “dead” document windowsIf I “close all tabs” in Acrobat, only the real documents will disappear - the dead ones will continue be listed. AFAICS it might take a restart of windows to clear these, but I may be mistaken.

Participant

Question

Bug Report - Acrobat Pro - "dead" windows displayed in Windows 11 taskbar

Forum|Forum|3 days ago
February 3, 2026
1 reply
22 views

Unknown if this an Acrobat Pro bug or Windows 11, but if I hover the cursor over the acrobat pro icon on the task bar, I get a list of documents that are currently open PLUS a list of “dead” documents.

These cannot be closed.

If I “close all tabs” in Acrobat, only the real documents will disappear - the dead ones will continue be listed. AFAICS it might take a restart of windows to clear these, but I may be mistaken.

creative explorer

Community Expert

@SimonFe Not sure, but have you updated your Window 11 since that last on in January was quite buggy? Microsoft has since released a stable patch release: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/january-29-2026-kb5074105-os-builds-26200-7705-and-26100-7705-preview-85bd25de-894a-43eb-a19b-9a59d10f194b

Are the files circle are they corrupted files less than 10kb files? Are they the temp files? On a MAC, we can have hidden files hidden… what happens if you turn on hidden files, do they disappear? https://www.windowscentral.com/software-apps/windows-11/how-to-hide-or-unhide-files-on-windows-11

m

SimonFeAuthor

Participant

Hi,
Windows update says the system is up to date.

I don’t know what those files/windows are. It seems to me they are some sort of “zombie” process left over from perhaps one of

files that have been deleted or moved
files that were open at some point and maybe there was an issue when the computer was put into sleep mode etc
something else.

If if close acrobat (and I have checked with Windows process explorer that it’s gone), it still displays those ’windows’ whener the cursor hovers over the task bar.

I don’t believe they are “hidden files” - more something that had been opened in the past.

creative explorer

Community Expert

@SimonFe either you can delete and trash them. Or move them into a folder ‘maybe trash’ just in case it’s an important OS files? If your PC still works fine after a restart, it’s probably safe to say you can delete them

m

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