I feel Acrobat has effected the preview pane in windows explorer (just 4 me)

Question

about 5 months ago, my windows explorer preview pane stopped showing PDF files. It was shortly after the time I installed and started using Acrobat.

Somethings it startes to work, but only for a few hours (and many weeks inbetween).

I have spent about 50 hours searching for a solution and applying all the solutions advertised all over the net, but none work. I had uninstalled and reinstalled apps, and even reset my PC so had to download and re-install all my apps, but still problem remails.

I feel it's Acrobat. A couple of times I disabled the thumbnail preview setting under preferences and aplied it again, each time restarting my PC with every single sight change, just incase restarting the app or windows explorer was not enough. A couple times the preview pane in explorer started to work, but then, as I mentioned, won;t last for more then some hours. When I tried again the same disable thunmb preview methond and re enable, it did not work, but a month later it did work, and then didn't again. maybe it's an intermitent problem but I can't pin point the problem where it's coming from.

About a week ago I updated Acrobat (even though I stalled with latest update a month earlier), and then I have the preview pane working again, but then hours later it stops again.

Not sure if Acrobat has conflict with WPS I have installed, if it in some way effects the preview handlers in windows explorer.

I've read heaps of forums of people with no preview pane just for PDF and none of the solutions posted work for me. I really have spent 50 hours in past 5 months trying so many ways to fix. Great if anyone here knows what the cause could be.

I have Windows 11 Pro, with the latest updates (but made no different with earlier version) .

I have preview handlers box ticked in windows explorer.

word and excel files preview all the time in the pane of explorer.

Makes no different if I have my files listed with details, thumnails, or large thumnails.

I tried setting my open app as default for Acrobat, Edge and WPS, to open files but the preview pane does not preview the files, regards of which app is set as the default.

If a setting change does not fix the issue, I restart the app and try again, and if still no change I restart my PC.

I did a windows repair a month ago as it claimed their was a missing or corrupted files, and that took a number of hours and finished stating no errors and 100%, but problem of preview pane with PDF files remained.

If there is a conflict of preview handlers between Acrobat and WPS, I have no idea how to fix it.

The explorer preview pane always shows "this file can't be previewed" for all PDF files.

I spend 10 hours a day creating word docs and reading pdfs. I have a 1000 pdf files and it's great to preview pdf files quickly, as the thunbnail preview can't scroll thru pages nor no where near a large enough size to read. When PDF preview is working, it does not have the extra features like seen in my screenshot with a word file displayed in preview, but I can still scroll down the pages in pdf preview (and that's all I need).

creative explorer · Answer

@2chaoz this is interesting because I don't have this issue on my Mac. Its likely a problem is rooted in how Windows is trying to handle the PDF preview, likely due to a software conflict or a corrupted system component. The issue is not with the PDF files themselves or with your Acrobat account, but with how a specific function on your Windows PC is being interfered with.

Which makes me think, you mentioned "conflict of preview handlers between Acrobat and WPS" — suspicion about WPS is valid. Both Acrobat and WPS have their own preview handlers for PDFs, they could be in conflict, with one overriding the other intermittently. Since a preview handler is tied to a specific file extension (in this case, .pdf), only one can be active at a time. The problem might be a race condition where sometimes one registers successfully and other times it doesn't.

So how do you fix that? You won't like me...but it would test my theory out! Completely uninstall WPS Office!
Unfortunately, a simple uninstall of an application through the Control Panel or Windows Settings often leaves behind residual files, folders, and registry entries. To truly completely uninstall a program like WPS Office and eliminate potential conflicts, you need to go a step further. You may need to use a dedicated uninstaller program or manually check for leftover files and registry entries to ensure a clean removal. Open the uninstaller program. It will display a list of all your installed applications. Locate "WPS Office." Select WPS Office and choose the "Uninstall" option. The uninstaller will first run WPS's own uninstallation process. And check to make sure there are no more residual files. Not sure if there is a a tool for that (Adobe has a tool for their Adobe applications called Adobe Cleaner Tool). And even if you delete the files, it may go to the Trash or Recyle bin, completely delete them as well!

Once the process is complete, restart your PC to ensure all changes take effect.

Then open your Acrobat files to see if it's fine? If it is, then you know it's WPS Office is the issue. And maybe use Google Suite instead. Many years ago, I used to get Microsoft for $10-20. It was called Microsoft Home Use Program (HUP). Not sure if they still offer that.

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